The Fox of Mibu
by Maimakterion
Summary: The wolf of Mibu finds himself a wolf no more. But can a journey really restore the self he embodied during the Bakumatsu? Or is he subconciously seeking something else? SaitoXKuurenaiX? love triangle comming.
1. Not an epilogue

Disclaimer: i hereby disclaim in the usual maner of an author on ff net, if there's anything you think i own ... think a little harder

Sorry i was later than expected, i wanted to get this up on friday but i slept in and missed my ride into town so i couldnt get online until this morning

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The Fox of Mibu - Not an epilogue

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My name is Hajime Saito, this year will be my thirtieth of life. When one speaks in so dramatic a tone as I do now it is normal to say 'upon this earth', but under the circumstances I'm not sure that would be appropriate.

When fighting alongside the Batousai I learned that, unlike him, I could not hope to live as an ordinary man. I found that I needed to return to being the last of the wolves of Mibu. But with the manslayer gone and the wanderer firmly in his place there remained none in Tokyo who could fight well enough to bring me back to myself. So I left the capitol, to walk the land and feed my fire.

At first I planned to return to Kyoto to ask information from the Oniwaban regarding where I might find the remnants of Shishio's Juppon gatana. Surely if there is one who retains their swordsman's soul in all of Japan then it is one of them.

That is where trouble set in, for even the most relaxed traveler the trip between the eastern and former capitols should not take a full month. But for a month I have traveled and still I see no sign of the city, but worse, I have also not encountered other travelers for over a week. I did not mind at first, I simply assumed myself lost. After all Kyoto isn't going anywhere, wilderness survival poses no great problem to me and the possibility of encountering a skilled swordsman in the untamed forest is still greater than in Tokyo. But now I find myself not so certain, or more accurately I am quite certain that I am no longer in Japan. It's the huge desert that gives it away. Japan has no deserts and the one stretching before me is so large it could swallow my homeland whole.

Since setting out I haven't crossed more than a small stream, so it shouldn't be possible for me to have even left the island of Honshu. Still, even this strange, and perhaps even mystical, change in scenery doesn't bother me, after all – who can say that here isn't the very best place for me to find my lost self?

A number of tents huddle about a small lake at the beginning of some scrubby undergrowth at the base of a mountain range, just at the limits of my vision. If they don't pack up and leave it is not inconceivable that I might reach them before nightfall.

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Now within my hundred and twenty second season, my third in this strange land, I am certain that some god has smiled upon me in sending me here. In every country of this strange and war torn land there are warriors of greater might than Shishio, they call themselves 'shinobi'. But by comparison to these soldiers of darkness the slayers of shadow that called themselves ninja in the Japan where I was born are but pale simulacra of real warriors. Even those of the least caste, called 'gennin', are capable of magics thought impossible in the modern age.

The weaker ones are so ridiculously slow and weak in physical combat that these petty tricks could be defeated even by that pathetic rooster Himura keeps as a pet (don't hurt me Sano fans, remember this is Saito's POV so it would be odd if I said nice things about him). But the best … they move like some of the lesser manslayers of the Bakumatsu and their magics are as far above those of the 'gennin' as my swordplay is. Between these skills I was thoroughly humiliated by one of thee 'Jounin' the first time I fought one.

But these seven months have been long and full. I can fend off their petty illusions with my swordsman's spirit, in the same way that one defeats shi no ippo and destroying attack magic is possible if I channel energy into my blade.

In my fourth month I was wounded severely and awoke in the care of two women. On seeing my wounds I despaired, being so close to reviving myself only to have such injuries cripple me for life …

For a week I saw only one of them, the brown haired on who referred to the other, at the time only a voice from the next room, as master. She sat with me day and night, closing wounds and stopping me from ending my own life honorably. The whole time she assured me that once she stopped my bleeding her master would treat my lasting injuries and I would be able to fight again. When I laughed at her naivety she simply explained how such a thing was possible through chakra healing, after that she told me a lot about other uses of chakra, probably only to distract me, but I learned much that week.

Then one night, I fell asleep and when I woke they were gone. But I felt as though I had never been injured at all.

An interesting thing about Japanese is the concept of fame. Fame is called 'yuumei', literally 'having a name'. Nowhere is that more evident than here, all of the strongest are known to everyone by some name. The white fang, the yellow flash, red sand, the three, the seven swordsmen of mist, the five kages and, most recently, the name on everyone's lips – Uchiha Itachi. The boy who had apparently killed his own, apparently quite powerful, clan at around the same time I arrived.

But it is the name 'seven swordsmen' that moves me now, I have fought mist nins before and those that don't focus on that ninja magic are by far the best swordsmen I have faced since realizing I'd left Japan. While they weren't really any stronger in combat than any other village, they did have more complicated and varied sword styles in the same way other villages had hand to hand styles. To fight those recognized as their strongest! Surely the wolf within that has been coming back when I fight for a short time will return to stay. After testing myself on missing nins and others who would not cause a whole village to hunt me for their deaths I felt ready, I set out from hidden stone with Kiri as the only destination in my mind.

Right now I'm in Konoha, a village that has never wronged me and one I don't intend to wrong while I am here. This marks the halfway point of my journey to mist and a good place to stop, take odd jobs and replenish my supplies of things that can be hard to hunt or scrounge up on the road. As a token of faith I have bound my sword into it's sheathe with thin rope tied into a symbolic 'peace bind', not that I am foolish enough to fight a shinobi in a village full of them. Besides, there's some sort of festival on tonight and fighting isn't everything, even to the wolf of Mibu.

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I decided to call the prologue 'not an epilogue' because the whole Saito leaving to wander thing was sort of his epilogue moment in ruroni kenshin, but here it is actually the start of the story

the first update might be a while because i've got to type and post the last chapter and epilogue for another fic before i let myself got too absorbed by this, but i have got chapter one writen (in a notebook because trains are boring) and a good start on chapter 2


	2. Save the child, trigger for a new concer

I personally think this chapter is too short, by a significant margin. But it took me about two hours to write and about that long again to type out so i wasnt expecting it to me a behemoth or anything. I just wanted to get out another chapter. it takes up twelve pages of my notebook and three pages in word indicating that i need to work on my handwriting among other things. that aside i have another afternoon of nothing to do tomorrow for three hours between lectures so iwill be busy wasting more paper

that aside, i've realised something. at about this time in the story saito is thirty, (because i wanted to make him as young as possible, ie: revolution begins at 16 or so, thus he's 20 by the end and 30 at the end of ruroni kenshin / start of this) and Kurenai is ten or twelve. so i've decided to make kurenai about 16 now to even thier ages a little, but still dont expect the instant romance you get in other fics. VFSNAKE mentioned Saito thinking about Naruto being similar to misao or yahiko, rather than Naruto it seems more likely that kurenai will at least start out being thought of that way. i'm thinking of having Naruto be more like okita from Samurai X. which is incidentally where the sake quote comes from.

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Fox of Mibu - Save the child, trigger for a new concerto

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Saito sighed, Himura may be a fool, but his master, now _there_ was a wise man. After draining his sake cup, he decided that quoting him may indeed be the best response to his drinking partner's question, "Spring brings cherry blossoms to comfort you, the summer stars, the harvest moon in fall and the powdered snow in winter, all of these things, and the promise of them, is what makes sake taste so good."

Saito felt that he had been quite profound, even if it was only by proxy. He was at the stage of drunkenness that made philosophy seem to come so easily. Looking over to see what the guy he was drinking with thought of that idea and shook his head, the man was asleep. Oh well, it's not like they had even properly introduced themselves, they had simply been drinking in the same bar and started talking.

After thinking for sometime Saito eventually decided the end his revelry for the night, after all he hadn't even been in this world when the village had defeated whatever enemy this 'demon' was. "A serve of plain white rice to go please."

"Maido!"

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Saito chewed on a mouthful of the rice, balancing the wooden tray on his right hand and shuttling rice to his mouth with the chopsticks in his left. Many people were bothered by the idea of eating plain rice or noodles but Saito felt drawn to it, especially when drunk. With a pinch of salt it was also good for sobering up faster and preventing a hangover. It didn't hurt that he had walked out of the village and was sitting under a tree, the cold is also good for sobering up, plus being in a cool, quiet place after coming out of somewhere as hot and noisy as the festival also feels quite good.

Suddenly there was no more rice on the tray. A strange look crossed Saito's face, a mixture of satisfaction at his meal and irritation that the drunken desire for salty things hasn't been quelled. Setting aside the tray by his feet with the chopsticks placed neatly atop it, he leaned back against the tree. With the comfort of the cool air and the still warm haze of alcohol lulling him it wasn't long before he slept.

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Saito awoke suddenly, cold and cramped, the obvious conclusion to his poor choice in sleeping arrangements, in the dark of the hour before the dawn. As many swordsmen teach themselves to, he awoke without moving, changing his breathing patterns or opening his eyes. He was completely still, waiting for some sign of what had woken him. Sniffing the air, listening for stray sounds.

There it is, light footsteps, close together, a child running. Sobbing, gasping, terrified breaths, so … a child running _from_ something. Still, there was no sign of pursuit, maybe the child was simply lost and afraid of the darkness. Placing one hand down he pushed himself to his feet, after all it is the duty of adults to look after children.

But something stopped him, there was the sound of a snapping twig and the child, a young boy from his voice, screamed and began to run even more desperately. _Something is driving him away from the village._ Now Saito was definite that he needed to help the child, but now more care would be required. The tall swordsman stood stock still and strained his hearing to it's limits. The tension in the air was more than he'd felt in a decade and a half, listening for his prey like this brought him back to the bakumatsu, like it still raged around him. For a few moments he even found himself having to consciously resist the urge to snap some orders to his long dead lieutenant Okita.

Then he found it, the almost soundless step of a shinobi. When the grin of his returned purpose lit his face it was the wolf of Mibu who smiled his evil smile. Saito set off at a dash toward his prey.

Reaching the edge of a clearing he turned deadly calm and stood to watch as a boy, barely old enough to have two years of practice walking, trip on a root and cut his face on a rock. Rather than rise and run on the child, dressed in faded brown pants and a stained once-white shirt, simply rolled on his back to face his oncoming doom. Even with the tears running down his face and the terror shaking his small frame, the child chose to at least look his murderer in the eye at the end.

_Truly the soul of a warrior. This boy is wasted in a village of spies and assassins._

Then the boy's death came flying from the trees, covered in a flowing black robe and masked by white porcelain, the only visible skin was that of the hand gripping the kunai that would silence the child eternally. As the cloaked form neared him the boy stopped shaking, although whether this was due to his resolve overcoming the terror or the terror freezing him in place can not be known.

"Gatotsu, third style."

Suddenly, the terrified of the target was replaced by the stern and imposing face of a warrior in the view through the eyeholes of the ANBU's mask. More attention grabbing, however, was the sword point piercing the mask and parting the flesh of the face.

By some supreme effort and a bright spray of chakra the cloaked figure contorted midair and avoided a fatal impaling. Given the desperation of the manoeuvre a safe landing was possibly too much to hope for and the ANBU hit the ground hard, tumbling past Saito and stopping in a heap. As a true ninja the figure recovered quickly, returning to it's feet and regaining it's fighting stance.

A woman's face with a deep cut starting bellow her right eye and running back to bisect her right ear was revealed when the mask fell apart. The blade had gone further than that, parting the material of her hood and revealing a mass of pale green hair. Seemingly unfazed by the fact her mask was now lost on the ground somewhere and the blood pouring liberally from her face she met and held the gaze of one of the most feared killers of the Meiji revolution.

"Who are you? What business have you, interfering with the will of Konoha, outsider?" her tone was confrontational, showing no fear before those soulless eyes.

"The business of the village? Why would you need to chase him away from witnesses and hide your actions if they are in accordance with the will of the village?" the tall hitokiri's words were sharp, cruel, "ANBU are an assassin squad, although you possess only the same amount of overall skill as others of your rank, all of that skill is focussed on combat instead of other areas ninja may choose to specialise in, that combined with the ability to kill dispassionately … even chuunin level ANBU are fearsome upon the battle field. Why not entertain a worthy opponent?"

During his stay Saito had learned that, here at least, while they were less common, female ninja, kunoichi, could be every bit as life threatening as their shinobi counterparts. He was getting into this fight even more than others he'd had in stone and rain on the way. But perhaps it was the nature of his opponent that fuelled him rather than her strength at the moment.

"Aku, sugu, zan. Destroy, evil, instantly. This code guided my life for years and I have destroyed many. But I have encountered few evil enough to murder a child and claim it the will of the people." Saito ended this sentence by dropping into a low stance, sword in his left hand, pointing down over his head, with the blade angled up, his right hand came up, just below the tip of his blade.

In the trees another ANBU stopped forming seals and dispersed his chakra, his insight had always been perfect and right now it told him that this stranger would be doing his job for him.

On the ground the bleeding ANBU woman tensed and leapt back upon seeing the manslayer's stance. She needed more space to fight this one. As she flew through the air away from her enemy , _that damn demon lover_, she formed a stream of seals, "Doton, Doryou yari!" mud leapt from the ground and into her outstretched hand, forming a long spear. _With the better reach I can keep him out of combat distance, I can still win here._ Before launching her assault she realised there was something she had to know, "Why can you protect a demon like that?"

To her horror Saito looked directly into her eyes as he responded, "Demon?" his voice was a snarl and his eyes were … yellow? "I've fought men a thousand times more dreadful than him and significantly more human than me. Real _manslayers_ and you actually fear this _child_?"

The watcher in the trees nodded, in the ANBU he had also faced foes more awe inspiring than any one present and more humanitarian than himself. For any shinobi on the field that would be a hard argument to refute.

For a moment the girl looked ready to try, but before she could her enemy was gone. It took her a stunned moment to register the scream of pain behind her, and several more to recognise the object before her as the bloodied tip of a sword protruding from her throat. As she fell, gargling the blood pooling in her lungs, she heard another form falling to the ground behind her.

Eventually, when the shock wore off, ANBU captain Hatake Kakashi dropped into the clearing. With the child fainting at the sight of blood he was the only person conscious following the battle. At first he figured tonight would be another night of helping the boy avoid pursuit. Then it had turned into yet another occasion he would be required to execute a comrade for opposing the law and attempting to kill the alleged demon child. In the end he had been treated to something amazing, he was just glad he had been preparing his raikiri and had his sharingan exposed, otherwise he'd have missed it.

Being the student of Konoha's yellow flash he knew the awesome power of teleportation techniques. He also knew their limits, you couldn't appear stabbing someone because teleported objects would fail to materialise if you tried to make them turn up in the same space as another solid. Five minutes ago Kakashi would have assured anyone who asked that what the stranger had just done would result in only a broken weapon for the attacker. Yet the sharingan had clearly seen the so called 'manslayer's chakra grasp the essence of the damage done to his blade and convert it to raw sourceless pain before spreading it evenly over his body.

While he had passed out from the pain, it was clear that the female ANBU would never regain consciousness. She was half drowned in the blood running down her throat even if someone did close the hole in her neck.

Kakashi sighed loudly, first he hefted the large swordsman onto his shoulder, then he picked up the still form of the infant under one arm. Hokage-sama would doubtless want a report on this.


	3. Hyuuga children hate you

If someone feels like telling me why ffnet hates me so much it'd be greatly appreciated, i've tried to change the category of this fic about three times this week and each time i have it said it changed sucessfully, but it was back to how it started the next time i looked. that pisses excell off ...

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Hyuuga children hate you.

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Saito stared blankly at the page in his hand and cursed his rotten luck. The seven swordsmen of mist – one dead, two imprisoned and four in hiding following an attempt by three of them at assassinating the Mizukage. Bad news indeed. Given the security of a shinobi prison and the chances of finding a ninja with a whole continent to hide in it was entirely likely that the dead one could prove his best chance for a duel.

_Very well_, he placed the papers in their folder and placed that, in turn, into his travel pack, _They will resurface someday. The path of the sword teaches nothing if not patience._ Oddly the former manslayer felt at peace with his decision to put his pursuit on hold, normally there would be some disquiet from some part of his mind, either the wolf would be restless or his conscience would debate whether the people he cut down were truly so evil, no matter what choice he made.

But with this decision to wait for the swordsmen to resurface the wolf was oddly calm and there was nothing to make his conscience wonder. Then there was that other matter ... it had not been any of the parts of himself he associated with mercy or kindness that had caused him to lie to the Hokage and say he sought an apprentice. It was the wolf, that part of himself that handled all knowledge pertaining to the sword...

But why not? After all, now that he thought on it, his own master had been half a decade younger than Saito was now when he had begun his training. From conversations following Kyoto he was fairly sure both Shinamori and Himura had begun their own training under masters younger than any of them were now. It was fine for them, it wasn't as if Aoshi was the last master of his style and Kenshin had openly expressed a desire that the Hiten mitsurugi die with him.

But what of himself? He had started out using the Shinmei ryu and there was still a whole school out there passing that style down. But after learning the forms and achieving combat readiness, and indeed still fighting with it to this day, he had failed to use any of the style's ougi, despite grasping the theories perfectly. That's what had made him set out and develop his own ougi for use with the style but based on different principals to the existing master skills, the Gatotsu. Therein lay the rub, allowing an ancient style to die after many generations of greatness as Himura had chosen was one thing, but to think that if he died right now the technique he had created would never see use again...

Of course there was the boy ... Saito continually found his mind drawn back to one moment, a single image. A tiny boy, not older than three or four, staring into eyes that wanted only to be his demise without flinching or looking away. Saito had been marked from his birth as a samurai, but one hear many tales of ronin masters taking on apprentices because they saw some incredible quality in them at a young age. Himura's master claimed to have chosen him after seeing him bury the dead, slavers who intended to sell him, bandits who intended to kill him and three women who had cared for him alongside one another. Even Kenshin's woman claimed to have chosen her ridiculous apprentice because of the pride he exhibited. Looking at it that way, at least taking on an apprentice because he was willing to face death was almost sane by comparison.

"Giyargh!" his thoughts interrupted by the shriek, Saito looked to his right. He was still just outside the business district, sitting on a bench in a quiet place to read the reports. On the other side of the street, in an alley mouth, there was a scene of unusual carnage. At least for this time of day.

On the ground one boy, about eight or nine, was rolling in agony while bleeding profusely what looked like a chunk of flesh _bitten_ from his arm, while another, clearly his younger brother, was in the process of falling to the ground amidst the spray of bright blood fountaining from his crushed nose. Above the two stood a third boy, half the age of the older brother but howling a feral victory cry even as tears of terror rolled own his face and his body shook from his own injuries. Suddenly the boy, familiar in his tattered rags and with his blonde hair, fell to his knees and began to cry in earnest, all the while trying to get the blood out of his mouth.

Shaking his head Saito stood and turned to his guide, only to find her showing a look of open pity toward the child. Oddly he felt reassured to see that someone other than the Hokage and that Kakashi boy cared for this 'Naruto' child's wellbeing. If the reactions of the Hokage's own guards were any indication then this child may be the most hated person in the village.

"Come Yuuhi-kun, good deeds are befitting of those in a position to perform them."

"U-uh, yes!"

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Saito scowled, somehow his plans to gather supplies and leave the village had been put on hold. He'd had to resort to threats to get the hospital staff to treat Naruto, which bothered him because the other two, quite clearly the attackers, had been admitted instantly. Moreover Kurenai had recommended that they remain with the boy until he was released to make sure none of the staff tried to harm him. Doctors trying to hurt a patient of all things!

The Hokage had explained that many of the villagers would like to see Naruto dead, although Saito had been able to tell quite clearly that the reasons stated had been blatant lies and had not really even bothered to remember them even as the Hokage spoke them. But thinking back now he was quite sure that none of them were serious enough for a doctor to forgo his vows over.

He momentarily considered pressing his young guide for information, but while he had initially assumed her to be something like a more serious and skilled version of Misao that face had vanished almost instantly when Naruto had been injured. Right now she was so solemn and silent she seemed more like Aoshi. While there was no way she was even close to being skilled enough to lie to him directly, her resolve was strong enough that she prevented him from gaining true information from her.

Resolving to ask the Hokage later, Saito allowed his mind to stray to other matters. Like how much more impressed he was with Naruto following the battle against the two older boys. Apparently the two were from a clan called the 'Hyuuga', distant relatives so far removed the were born without signs of the clan's bloodline limit. Despite this the clan head had some to personally thank him and Kurenai for escorting them to the hospital. _That_ man had interested Saito greatly. He had been able to pick out certain hints from the villages Hokage, even Himura and Shinomori had been readable to an extent. He had even been able to read Shishio well enough to fight with him for a short time. But that man, Hyuuga Hiashi, rather than simply being a closed book had been like a blank page, the sort of face Himura had described in recounts of his battle with Seta Soujiro.

For the first time in a long time Saito was unsure of his reading of another person's expression. Was there a hint of disdain when he looked over at his fallen clansmen? Did Saitou imagine the tiny nod of approval when the man found they had helped Naruto as well?

Significantly less blank was the dual expression of awe and terror on the face of the small girld gripping the back of his yukata and trying to steal unnoticed glances at the blonde in the bed. For his part Naruto seemed oblivious to her, chattering animatedly at Saito, who he seemed to be oddly unafraid of, and Kurenai, who he seemed to recognise as a nice person. Currently he was telling them about how great his new cast was and how he couldn't wait to get his friends, Shi-kun, Ki-chan and Cho-chan, to sign it. His smile slipped for only a moment when he realised that he'd have to manage it without their parents noticing him, but returned when that depressing thought metamorphosed into an exciting ninja mission to infiltrate the park and collect their signatures before their mothers came for them.

Even as he exchanged empty but polite formalities with Hiashi, Saito listened with part of his attention to Naruto, excitedly telling Kurenai about his friends, apparently both Ki-chan and Cho-chan got called chan because it annoyed them and made Naruto laugh but Shi-kun was always Shi-kun because he never got annoyed no matter what and it wasn't as fun to call him chan. Saito smiled, _A child that smart at four?_ The manlayer shook his head, _of course the child could just be naturally that placid._

Then came the other two, Cho-chan always had the best snacks and the tastiest lunches and he always shared a few tasty bits with the others, unless he had potato chips, then he only shared with Shi-kun. Ki-kun got a puppy for his birthday, but it wasn't big enough to come outside yet so Naruto hadn't been able to see it.

Naruto pouted and claimed that Ki-chan nust be lying to look cool. Saito felt the faintest of smiles form on his lips while he watched the boy, but stranger still was the true smile in the eyes of the Hyuuga leader visible in the reflection cast by the room's small window for an instant when everyone looked away from him.

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Saito stood perfectly still, his face as blank as he made it when trying to prevent an enemy from anticipating his movements. It was a strange tale he had just been told, if he chose to believe it then it explained the assassin's words from a few nights ago. It was also perfectly understandable that everyone in the village would hate the boy for it. It was certainly not acceptable but Saito knew that people were, as a group, only as smart as the stupidest person nearby them so it was possible for him to understand their hatred on an intellectual level, but to accept it on any level ... that was not. That aside, Saito did of course have his own feelings on the matter.

"A monster can never rid us of a monster. To kill a monster it takes a man." The old Hokage was momentarily put on edge by the stranger's words, "Those who try and kill him are clearly monsters, there is no way for them to succeed in ridding themselves of him," now the third was truly on edge, this stranger with his unreadable expression seemed to be expressing disdain for those who had tried to assassinate Naruto. But reading his expression it was impossible to tell if that was because of disgust at the act of killing a child or their failure to do it properly. The conversation could go two ways now, this 'Saito' could suggest Naruto be killed properly or ... "more than that though, the sheer ignorance of your villagers is an impressive monster, it would be good if this boy could become man enough to rid us of it."

The built up tension flooded out of the wizened old man with the fate of the village on his shoulders, "Then you will remain in the village and make the boy into such a man? You are looking for an apprentice after all."

"I fear you have me mistaken Hokage-dono, I myself am more monster than man."

"Oh?" the third leant forward and rested his chin upon his knuckles, "That may be, but your insight is near perfect and your dedication to your skills is something I'd like the boy to pick up ... by the way Saito-dono, what was your impression of Hyuuga Hiashi?"

Saito saw where this was going, but he had indeed formed an in depth theory about the man following their meeting, acting on the idea that all the things he had thought he had seen had been real, "Of all the people in the village he may be the best qualified to hold an opinion on Naruto. His view springs not from the reasonless hate that the village at large displays, nor is it the predisposition toward liking the boy that you and Kakashi-san share or even the guilty admission that it was wrong to hate him that Yuuhi-kun displays. I have seen that today allowed himself to feel a little respect for the boy, by ignoring whatever else he thought about the boy at other times and knowing honestly that it is an impressive feat for a four year old to beat two older attackers. By treating all people like this and totalling up all one's feelings regarding them one may obtain an accurate view of one's own feelings toward them. Technically tou could describe that as the attitude of an ideal warrior, at least as far as the manner in which he assesses those around him is concerned."

"Incredible, I have asked the same of several of my ANBU captains and the only once to reach a conclusion they were properly sure of was Kakashi-kun. Actually, while Kakashi-kun reached the same conclusion as you, he wasn't able to make as many extra insights as you made along the way. You have exactly the sort of insight I want Naruto to learn ... you weren't truly lying when you said you were searching for an apprentice were you?" the Hokage wore an oddly shrewd look, as though he somehow knew the thoughts that had been wandering about Saito's head all day.

Thinking that he was being somehow manipulated Saito none the less responded, "Indeed I was at the time Hokage-dono, but my chances of meeting one of the swordsmen in combat are quite badly reduced at the moment and I _am_ at the stage where it is normal to take on an apprentice or open a school ..."

"Of course you will not go uncompensated," The old man's voice was nearly victorious, as though there was no longer a chance that Saito would refuse, "Many things regarding Naruto now carry a certain reward, that position has been forced by the constant attempts on his life. Mostly they are things that I am saddened by the need to pay, the reward for killing those found trying to assassinate him or the classification of any money he spent as 'tax free income' that was required to get shopkeepers to let him buy food at their stores. But before any of them, and in a rather kinder gesture, the fourth put aside a fair sum of money for anyone willing to train the boy, he planned to pay for the boy's education as a sort of apology for sealing the Kyuubi in him. From his parents' last will and testament he is granted sole ownership of all his family's property and assets upon his majority, a standard master apprentice relationship would make you his legal guardian until that time and thus responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of those assets until that time. A later clause of the will acknowledges the problems associated with this and states that you may utilise the family's dojo building and grounds to support yourself and dedicates a sum of money to the upkeep of the other assets.

"This means it will actually have a _duty_ to restore the dojo to operating level. For yourself you will have the normal fee for taking on an apprentice from nothing to chuunin level, you will be, of all legal intents and purposes, the owner of a dojo with large grounds until he is old enough to inherit them."

So that's what was going on, no wonder the old man was so sure, there was no way Saito could turn this down. Naruto was the child he'd decided to take as his apprentice anyway, but with all this there was no way he could turn it down. Even a hall big enough for three students with no grounds would cost years worth of pay as a jounin, even if he somehow managed to go that long without paying for food or shelter. "Pfft, I would have taken him even if I had to fight you for him and live by taking assassination missions while wandering from village to village," Saito began to leave, but just before he opened the door, "Is there even a market for martial arts schools in a ninja village?"

The question seemed genuinely serious so Sarutobi answered seriously, realising that an outsider might indeed think that the clans would take care of that within the village, "Oh yes, everyone is taught the same basics at the academy and gennin are taught additional skills that suit them specifically by their jounin sensei. But after that, except for clan heirs and other judged worthy by their clan, we are all left to improve under our own power, be it by studying jutsu scrolls or seeking out a master privately. Of course the village offers special instruction for ANBU and medic nins but both are very specialised professions, other training is controlled by the people of the village rather than it's governing council. Currently there are two schools of 'zero' ninjutsu, one of genjutsu and three of different gouken taijutsu styles. Each school teaches it's own combat styles and specialist techniques but even they reserve their ougi for those students chosen to continue the school into the next generation."

Saito filed away that last piece of information, it meant he wouldn't be required to teach a student he didn't trust a skill simply because he had chosen to teach it to another student of the same level. But there was also something else that captured his attention, "Zero ninjutsu?"

"Ninjutsu with no elemental chakra. There are few scrolls on the matter because most villages shun 'zeroes', but in Konoha we have clans like the Hyuuga, Yamanaka and Akimichi who are, at the same time, extremely important to the village and built upon 'zero' clan ninjutsu. Konoha also sees higher birth rates of zeroes and people with unique elements than any other village. Your own school should do well here, as far as swords go our village has only the private style of the Gekkou clan and the style we teach our ANBU."

Saito returned to his seat in front of the Hokage's desk and the two discussed possibilities for many hours. Saito felt an odd rightness about the situation and the Hokage knowing that the his village's place as the most powerful of the shinobi villages came from the sheer uniqueness of each of his shinobi and that the addition of a sword style that wasn't limited to a clan or rank would give many of his villagers the tools to develop in even more new directions.

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Time plus four years

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Saito looked out over his school, empty though it was right then it reminded him of the first year after opening. At the time the fact that Naruto was a full time resident kept the ignorants among the villagers away, while many were privately wishing to train there none had been willing to risk the social exile that would come if they became known as a demon lover. Saito had personally executed three villagers for secretly requesting that he cast out the jinchuuriki and take on other students. The manslayer simply claimed they had challenged him as dojo yaburi, given his fame in the village at the time and his status of former outsider, not to mention that the fools breaking the laws about talking about the demon made the Hokage look the other way, very few questioned that explaination.

For a year his only student other than Naruto was Kurenai. The girl claimed to ha no interest in carrying a sword into battle but chose to take up the art as a sort of mental discipline, a pity Saito considered as she had significant talent for the Shinmeiryu, even enough to master one of the style's ougi from the theory Saito could recall from his own childhood. The ability he had failed to learn for such a long time he was driven to develop the gatotsu in the first place.

His other frequent visitor came to train him rather than to be trained. By a deal he made with the Hokage Kakashi visited him weekly to help him add ninja style chakra manipulation to his arsenal. It was one such session that had emptied the dojo of students today.

As he waited for Kakashi to arrive, Saito looked over the dozen name plates on the wall and thought of all the students he trained now. During the school's fifteenth month with only two students Saito had received a visit from an unexpected guest. Hyuuga Hiashi had proposed that those Hyuuga children born without the possibility of developing the byakugan be given the option of a year's training and thus the possibility of entering the academy and becoming ninja rather than simply being left to civilian life as they had been for generations. At first only three had joined but at the end of the year's training one of them had been able to grasp traces of the byakugan, even though it was just a slight widening of his peripheral vision and a better sense of chakra, over fifty had applied to be part of the next year's group. At first Saito had tried to keep to only ten students besides Naruto, so nine Hyuugas and Kurenai but when the other Hyuuga girl he had met so long ago had lost a match to determine the successor of the clan Naruto had come and begged on her behalf that she also be allowed to train. Now the waiting list to spend between one and three years as a full time student was over one hundred names from dozens of families across the village. The school was so famous now that Saito had had to fight off actual dojo yaburi on several occasions.

There was a knock from the open doorway and Saito gestured for Kakashi to enter, completely masking an excitement he hadn't felt since he was much younger, the last lesson had concluded with Kakashi deciding the it was time for Saito to move on to elemental manipulation, today would be the test. Without speaking Kakashi handed over five slips of paper and into each in turn he channelled chakra until they began to flutter in his grip, then he laip them on the floor and waited for Kakashi's verdict.

"As expected, you are a zero. Zeroes tend to have an especially good aptitude for one of the many jutsu types that aren't anchored to one particular element, body manipulation, puppetry and telepathy for example. Generally zero skills are more versatile and rely on that flexibility and intelligent use to match the raw power of jutsu which utilise elemental manipulation. Given the skill you used on the first occasion I met you I would have to guess that you are suited to movement type skills. Which of course explains why Hokage-sama chose to assign your training to me. I am after all the surviving student of Konoha's most successful movement jutsu expert. Aside from that zeroes have better probability of success when they attempt to learn elements not natural to them than those who have a natural element to begin with, such an example is Hokage-sama himself who is capable of manipulations requiring ell five of the 'standard' elements."

Saito nodded for Kakashi to continue, storing this data away for closer thought later on but not taking his attention off the man before him. Lessons would always go like this, Kakashi would simply tell him what he was to be told during that lesson and leave him to remember and study it in his own time, leaving a little time at the end for questions concerning the previous week's lessons, anything Saito didn't understand after the second week he was left to work on without help. But he had no time to think on this, as always Kakashi was continuing.

"As well as learning enough of the basics to create your jutsu of your natural type your contract with Hokage-sama stipulates that I must teach you an elemental manipulation not your natural type. There are five so called 'standard' elements, these are elements people have successfully learned despite not being native to them, also they are the basics combined by people capable of unique elements. Fire, while deserving it's place as most wantonly destructive element can also be quite deceptive because of it, obviously combustible materials can be set alight for attacks from a surprising direction, but less so – muddy ground can be heated to produce a water haze that will affect enemy range specialists in a way that cant be dealt with by simple dispelling jutsu. There are other uses, but whether you find them or not is up to your own inventiveness.

"Water is the most balanced element, catering equally to offence and defence as well as combat against multiple or single targets. In the presence of large bodies of water users of this element possess many advantages – jutsu that utilise water manipulation require, on average, four to seven fewer seals than jutsu of similar complexity of other elements, are easier to pull of with seals skipped than other elements and produce more power for the amount of chakra spent. In exchange the reverse is true when no water is close at hand, requiring monstrous amounts of chakra, additional seals and usually the user to stand still in order for the required water to be materialised.

"Earth is the undisputed strongest defence. While earth offences are slow and lumbering, should good strategy allow one to hit it is rare that it wont decide the battle then and there. This only applies to jutsu of course, simply utilising the earth manipulation on one's chakra and channelling it into an object can make incredibly durable tools, impart mass of change rigidity. Many earth users simply pull out their chakra, perform the elemental manipulation and reabsorb the chakra, making their skin as hard as steel without compromising speed the way armour would.

"Lighting is both the hardest and the easiest element to understand. On one hand it is the most easily influenced by natural randomness, on the other mankind has studies electricity in finer detail than almost any other phenomenon. Thus the rules and laws governing lightning are more definitely known than those of any other element. For example it can be stated for certain that lightning will follow the path of least resistance, but the path of least resistance can be changed for different voltages, windier days or humidity ... but it also might not.

"Control issues aside, lightning is the best element to bring power to a point, all lightning offenses strike through one point and the only lightning defence pours all available power into stopping a single attack without wasting any power defending other points but fall to multiple smaller strikes.

"Wind is easily the strongest offensive element, turning chakra into a blade sharper than any other. It is also the only element without a defensive skill, unless one counts destroying incoming attacks with an even more powerful strike.

"Finally each element has one element against which it is an advantage and one against which it is disadvantaged. Fire will eat any weaker find jutsu an fuel itself, it is possible for water to overpower fire even after it's own power has been used up, earth stands solidly against waters fluid strikes and where chakra is involved the common metaphor of erosion does not hold, lightning is often referred to as 'piercing' because of it's ability to almost ignore barriers erected by the strongest defensive element and a blade of wind is sharp enough to sever lightning's path and force it's power to disperse. Of course this only applies for jutsu of the same or similar power, a sufficiently powerful wind jutsu may destroy a fire jutsu before having a chance to be eaten and lightning may be powerful enough to regain it's course after being cut by a weak wind blade. The same is true for all elements, these are merely advantages, not an instant win like this was a game of janken or something."

Saito filed this away and focussed his attention even more closely, for the first time taking up the pen he normally used for these lesson as Kakashi moved into more important details. "The most basic movement skill, barring wall walking, water walking and the replacement technique is called 'Hidenkyaku'..."

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Explaining-ness

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Shinmeiryu – obviously every cut Saito makes isn't a gatotsu so I gave him a basic style for his regular techniques and made gatotsu a set of ougi that he uses for particularly tough opponents, mind you even against tough opponents he would need to use his normal strikes to create an opening for the gatotsu. The name comes from ... no you tell me, I want to know if any of you guys watch/read it anyway.

Cho-chan, Ki-chan and Shi-kun – aka Choji, Kiba and Shikamaru, kids Naruto gets along with, as long as their parents aren't there to take them somewhere else. You can seriously imagine a young Naruto calling Kiba and Choji chan to annoy them cant you? And you can doubtless imagine shika being smart enough to see through it too.

A monster can never rid us of a monster. To kill a monster it takes a man. – I heard this somewhere before, I think Alucard may have said it to paladin Anderson in Hellsing, damn fine quote anyway.

Elemental and zero ninjutsu – yes I know you may have had this explanation before, this is for the benefit of those who don't read the manga.

Hidenkyaku – stolen mightily from bleach, with this technique one gathers a cloud of spirit particles ... er chakra perhaps ... under the feet to float and allow movement at incredible speeds. In the interests of non-dbz-ification I have decided to make it impossible to use this technique without a surface within two inches of the feet, thus no miraculous teleporting across chasms etc. Also doing it while water walking is friggin hard and while wall walking is 'yeah right screw that you crazy person' hard as for doing it while hanging from a roof ...

Title - once again stolen from bleach as that is my theme, this one comes from my favourite chapter name of all - Quincy archer hates you :D


	4. School daze!

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The Fox of Mibu - School Daze!

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Naruto looked at Mizuki-sensei, on the outside his face was thankful and excited, on the inside he was narrowing his eyes in suspicion. As soon as he entered the room Iruka had stated that naruto need not perform the bunshin test, to Naruto the look on Iruka's face clearly showed that the teacher was trying to position him for a pleasant surprise and as such the boy had shaped his face into a suitably depressed expression in order to allow his sensei the minor satisfaction of 'cheering him up' with his surprise.

Mizuki, however, had interrupted Iruka's good news with his protests that Naruot should at least be given the opportunity to try. Naruto had always hated Mizuki-sensei, not only was the man so painfully imperceptive as to fail to see that Iruka wasn't simply planning to fail Naruto, he was also painfully, painfully stupid. It was hardly uncommon knowledge that Naruto, despite his otherwise formidable skills in nin-, sen- and tai-jutsu, could no more perform genjutsu than he could breathe underwater. Rather than helping the boy as he appeared to be, the fool was trying to all but assure Naruto's failure. What was that about the road to hell being paved with good intentions?

"At least let him try! He is by far the best student in all other areas, we could pass him based on those criteria."

Iruka smiled indulgently, obviously unwilling to see ill intent in his long time ally, "Oh, I think we can do better than that. After all that would just pass him as the lowest scoring gennin and unbalance the teams by having the two strongest gennin on it. Why ever would I do that ... "

It was almost too easy, Iruka was all but laughing out loud at the sheer 'cunning' of his plan and that made the whole trial more a performance than anything else, it was easy enough to read his intent and predict the shuriken. But the teacher clearly knew Naruto's ability level and threw with such speed that any advantage gained from anticipation was equalled out into an instant of sheer, pounding terror as the pointed steel came closer to his eye and he desperately moulded chakra.

"... when I can test him on kawarimi instead?" Iruka wore a grin of satisfaction as he looked at his Hitai-ate pinned to the wall by his own shuriken and felt the sharpness of cold steel at the base of his skull, "For evading the shuriken – five points, without having your blood drawn – one point, for reappearing at your preferred combat range, in attack stance and out of my striking zone – four points. A perfect ten Naruto, I do however feel you deserve a point of extra credit for managing to replace yourself with an object in direst physical contact with your attacker ... hmm, why not?"

Naruto kept his face looking delighted and chattering stupidly at while inside he scowled, it wasn't that he wasn't happy to be a gennin, he was truly excited. It was just that Mizuki-sensei's strange reactions were of more immediate import. Despite his earlier misguided attempt to help Naruto, the chuunin seemed to be struggling to conceal irritation now that the boy had passed. While auto-piloting through the formalitiesof thanking Iruka and Mizuki and accepting his hitai-ate the new gennin considdered the possible implications of the actions he was observing. _Obviously he wanted me to fail, which means that the previous incident was intended to make me fail while making __ihm__ look like he was on my side. But what would he gain by having the trust of a failed __accademy__ student?_

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Hours later Naruto stood before the Hokage, relating his now completed story. After class had ended for the day Mizuki approached him, clearly desperate to salvage his plan he had revealed that Naruto would be scored lower than Uchiha Sasuke, he had expressed at great length his despite for the Uchiha 'genius' and had hinted that he would personally rather see Naruto take the number one spot. Then the traitor had revealed his plan at last, telling Naruto about an 'extra credit assignment 'he was willing to let the boy try that involved taking a scroll from the Hokage's office and learning a jutsu from it. Naruto had instantly put the last of the pieces together and gone directly to the Hokage himself.

"Hmm, this is very well thought out Naruto, I have indeed authorised no such training. Here, take this," the Hokage handed over a thick scroll that looked almost exactly like the scroll of forbidden seals sitting behind him, "this scroll is mostly blank, I was intending to inscribe it with some unique jutsu of my own, just as the fourth did with the forbidden scroll, but so far I've only written one complete jutsu. Go and practice this at the place Mizuki recommended you train. You and Iruka are to ambush him once he arrives. I foresee no difficulty in combat between the two of you and Mizuki's rather ... limited talents. Should your accusations prove correct you may keep the scroll and the jutsu inscribed within as reward, it is one of the few techniques the fourth chose to inscribe in a private scroll rather than the scroll of seals."

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Naruto stared blankly at the scroll, it was an incredibly hard concept to grasp. Not only were the effects of the jutsu almost indescribable, the ways in which one perceived them was also varied and depended upon the person using the technique. For one person the jutsu might strip their mind form their body and send it wandering for a time to see things further away than even the byakugan might clearly make out, for another they might simply see _everything_ at once and have to somehow interpret that with their limited human mind. Likewise the methods of it's use were varied based upon the user's personality, requiring some to stare at a bowl of ink or loose themself in a reflection or fall into a trance or even listen to a particular piece of music.

Ultimately the jutsu could be described in the simplest terms as a method for seeing things that were simply too far away in both distance and time for any other jutsu to spot. No matter what the requirements imposed by the user on themselves, the jutsu always rendered the user completely motionless and defenceless for the duration.

"_Zen__ku__kosu_" Naruto muttered the name once more as he tried to fit all the variables into his mind and wait for Mizuki to wander to his own death. His sword was drawn and sitting across his knees, as though simply there to help him meditate and either it or one of Iruka's kunai would end the traitor's life this night. Growing increasingly bored with the wait Naruto decided to try the initial exercise listed on the scroll.

Letting his mind unravel to the best of his ability Naruto tried to cast about for a hint of movement, something simple for his wandering mind to catch if he somehow got this to work. Then there it was, he could clearly see a figure in a chuunin vest creeping up on something, slightly further away he could make out the clearing he was sitting in, complete with his own meditating form.

Almost without thinking he broke of the technique and called out, "Iruka-sensei, he's at five metres on your seven o'clock."

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Naruto stared up at his master, Saito had obviously been informed of his student's role in the capture of the rogue chuunin but he had given Naruto no recognition beyond a nod and a look that said 'Then I shall expect even more from you in future'.

Tonight there was no one in the dojo but them and master Saito had ordered him to present himself in the main hall dressed in his 'formal' uniform. Naruto, like all students of Konoha's Shinmei dojo, owned several uniforms – several of the blank grey gi with grey hakama that everyone but the instructor wore during training, a few sets of white gi and black hakama that he wore around town and to the academy and his 'formal' uniform, the full black gi and hakama with white trim that all students were required to wear during examinations.

What bothered him was not the thought of facing master Saito in a challenge in order to move from his current level to the next and move to the 'learn new skills' phase of his constant cycle of learning new and perfecting old skills, he had faced dozens already. He had faced many challenges just to progress through the Shinmeiryu until he was ready to learn the first stance of the gatotsu and the challenges he faced each time he had moved on to a new stance had been tough, he had also overcome four of his master's ten levels of 'onigoko'. What bothered him was the sight of his master, always before when he had been summoned in his formal uniform he had found Saito standing ready in a pale blue gi and dark blue hakama, sword at his hip and prepared to leave the hall and head to wherever his student was to face his trial.

Tonight Saito was sitting on the small raised area at the front of the hall, garbed not in his instructors gi and hakama, nor in his blue suit. Instead he wore a uniform Naruto had never seen before, grey hakama of a lighter shade than the normal student gear, a dark blue gi and a haori of lighter blue with a pattern of white triangles biting into each sleeve. Possibly even more unusual – his sword was not at his side but resting on the floor on his right side, although given that he was sitting on the floor in the seiza position it was proper that his sword not be in his belt, but to Naruto it felt odd. In a final touch of unusual ceremony Saito's hair, normally tied only loosely with bangs allowed to partly obscure his hitai ate, was tied tightly at the top of his head and allowed to fall down his back in a samurai's topknot, leaving the mark of the leaf upon his brow clearly visible.

His master had seemed to be meditating when Naruto had entered so he had simple sat opposite him, placing his own sword on his left and kneeling in a mirror of Saito's position. As it turned out he didn't have long to wait as his master opened his eyes and met his gaze almost at once.

"Congratulations boy ... no, Naruto," Naruto felt odd to hear his own name from his master's lips, for all that he thought of Saito-shishou as his family and believed his master felt similarly he had been called 'boy' for as long as he could remember, it wasn't belittling him it merely seemed ... proper, "You are a boy no more, the plate on your head marks you as an adult of the village. Never forget that, despite your age you now face all the privileges and responsibilities of a full adult. I may be your master and those of higher rank may give you the orders but you now bear the ultimate responsibility for your own fate and your own actions. You have done well."

Naruto felt a glow of unfamiliar emotions at receiving praise from the older man, who would normally treat him exactly as any other student. Somewhere in his mind he realised that all the gennin must be feeling this about now as their parents praised them for passing. For a moment his old pity returned when he thought of Sasuke being alone right now, but that passed when he considered the boy's recent change in attitude, his obsession with being the best caused him regular bouts of embarrassing childish rage when Naruto bested him and lost him more and more respect in the blonde's eyes of late. Besides, the moody Uchiha would probably gain some obscure satisfaction from wallowing in his loneliness.

"In celebration I have prepared some gifts for my student," Now Naruto was utterly shocked, beyond the yearly ritual of restocking his weapon pouch and new uniforms to match his size the only present Naruto had ever received from his master was the right to dictate the menu on his birthday.

"The conservative dress of my own youth seems rather washed out when I pass through the crowds these days. I have thus endeavoured to select for you something that is rather more bold and contrasting, perhaps it will even be distinctive enough to make your enemies tremble at the sight of you once you are famous enough that simply recognising you is enough to send the weak of will fleeing."

Naruto took the poffered pile of cloth and inspected the first item to find a set of hakama, perfectly black and not the dull black of his normal black hakama but really black, with deep and contrasting bands of orange down every second crease, fading gradually to black as they neared the ground. Next came a gi top of the same black but with no other markings. Lastly Naruto's breath was taken away by a similarly night black haori with a twisting pattern of complicated orange lines working their way up the sleeve of his sword arm, thinning toward the shoulder as though the two colours were armies, the cuff was the orange's forward camp and the patterns brave orange divisions forcing their way deep into enemy territory and growing fewer and fewer the further they went.

Holding the clothes and feeling the cloth, high quality material from the sort of shop that Naruto had never been able to look at without feeling like he'd spent all his money. Comfortable and soft to the touch but hard wearing enough that jounin would wear clothes made of it on missions, even a bolt of the cloth would cost a thousand times the meagre allowance that allowed Naruto to lash out on ramen once a fortnight. The boy was overwhelmed, choking on his words he couldn't even manage appropriate thanks, but Saito pressed on to his next gift.

"Give me your sword."

Now visibly shaking Naruto delivered the sheathed blade into his master's outstretched hand. Accepting the blade Saito drew it partway from it's sheathe and observed the many nicks and signs of wear on the, admittedly cheap, blade. Standing and placing the blade on a display rack at the front of the hall Saito kept a perfectly expressionless face as he returned to face Naruto with a different sword in his grasp.

"You are of course aware of the type of steel that can be forged to accept chakra," Naruto nodded confirmation but Saito didn't stop speaking, "that property is lost when it is folded with other steels to create a katana blade. It has taken us years to manage but a weapon smith and metallurgist friend of mine has created three new alloys of that metal that each possess the properties of the different steels that are worked together to make a katana such a fine blade and by working them he has created for me two blades. One is my own, the other," Saito reached out and offered the blade in his hand to Naruto, "is yours. Now go to bed and rest up, you have your squad assignments tomorrow."

As Nartuo left the room, stunned to silence, he considered his master's gifts. He felt the cloth of his clothing to make sure it wasn't a dream, it was real under his fingers, a heavy but soft linen that would not only be useable even under the more stressful conditions a shinobi might require of a garment but would remain comfortable even after years of such treatment. He drew the katana slightly, his previous blade had been an asauchi, even by normal standards, but his master had long scoffed openly at the blades ninja artificers deemed worthy of naming saying that the normal standards of weapon smithing were much lower than should be acceptable, saying that they had no souls because the blade was never a sublime enough work to house a soul and to name any katana but those whose forms were worthy of a soul was nearly a blasphemy. But clearly etched on the blade, just above the tsuba, was a name 'sakura ichimonji' – clearly a play on one of the most famous meitou 'kiku ichimonji' – did this mean his master had somehow had someone in the village forge a sword that he considered to be capable of holding a soul and thus having a name? The mere thought that he could even be in the same room as a blade like those his master had described as meitou set Naruto's body shaking.

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"Third place overall and top femal rookie is Hyuuga Hinata with forty two points in the final exam and three points of extra credit in taijutsu for a final mark of ninety percent."

The gathered students applauded politely although none really cared about who got that particular award, they were all there to see who got the rookie of the year, the girls all wanted Sasuke to recognise them as cheering louder than any of the other girls and the guys all wanted Naruto to win, even if only to have the smug Uchiha taken down a peg. Hinata herself was fairly uninterested in the recognition, as long as she was able to become a gennin, it was a pity though, that her rank clearly meant she would not be placed on a team with her long time training partner and, only barely secret, crush.

"Second overall is," the crowd went on edge, for this would only leave one candidate for first standing next to Iruka, "Uzumaki Naruto." There were moans and cries of rage and even some swearing from those boys who had placed bets against the Uchiha heir. But, like Hinata, Naruto didn't care at all about his ranking against the other rookies. Even as Iruka explained that Naruto was the only graduate to score higher than one hundred percent through his extra credit work he had also had several marks deducted for the special circumstances of his exam, giving him a total of ninety eight percent and second place, Naruto's mind was busy with thoughts of the girl on his left.

Lately it had become increasingly difficult to concentrate on things that weren't Hinata, actually. Rather than puzzling over how a chuunin could be so pathetic as Mizuki as he had been, he found himself taking in her familiar profile from the corner of his eye. Even as he watched she began to blush in embarrassment, skilled as he was he could easily tell that she was being embarrassed for a specific reason, he had to surmise that he had once again caught her gazing at her 'most admired person' that he had often eavesdropped on her discussing with Kurenai. It had been clear almost from the outset that Kurenai's 'secret' crush was non other than Saito-shisho, but Naruto simply could not figure out who possessed the qualities Hinata described her admired person as having. At first he had grasped on her admission that the object of her affections was older than her, but then he realised that she was the only one in the class younger than him, ie: _everyone_ he knew was older than her.

He just couldn't figure it out, Kiba had the 'strong' and 'brave' parts in spades and he was the best candidate for the 'rowdy' but Naruto couldn't reconcile the dog boy with '... but so serious and quiet at times too'. Now Shikamaru, there was someone who was quiet and seri... just quiet actually. Who else had been in the direction she was looking at the time? It was right past him so he couldn't see the people in that direction and see her at the same time, he just had to remember where everyone was sitting. Chouji? He was strong in the extreme if one took the literal meaning of the word and ever since they were children Naruto had thought of him as brave. Then Naruto recalled one little gossip session in which Hinata had admitted that she found her crush 'sexy' under heavy duress and with an intense blush. Trying to put that together with 'Chouji' didn't help matters much, handsome was possible and the boy was as loyal and trusting and trustworthy as Naruto could imagine a human ever being, but sexy was all about how you moved and spoke wasn't it? That was why Kunoichi got lessons in seduction, something that could be a potent technique for both intelligence operations and assassinations.

Inadvertently Naruto found himself trying to picture Chouji moving the same way Ino did when she tried to get Sasuke's attention. Suddenly his stoic image shattered as his face turned slightly pale and he shook his head, trying to clear his mind as though it were an etch-a-sketch, all the while coughing from the strain of trying to squeal in terror and gasp in horror at the same time.

As he caught his breath he caught Hinata trying to stifle a giggle. He tended to have an episode like that every day or so, the rest of the class were all used to it and never really paid him any attention. But Hinata was closer to him than anyone else and he had made the mistake of telling her about it once, now she joked at his expense, trying to guess what had set him off this time. She would doubtless try to get him blushing on the way home after this class. Damn, he'd been looking in Chouji's direction at the time too.

Not to mention that her seeming to know what he was thinking was the cause of more than a few rumours about the two. But that was, perhaps, to be expected anyway, after all they were friends of opposite genders and they hadn't gone their separate ways with the onset of puberty. Given that they were together for several hours every day since they were about four there were even rumours of arranged marriage. Once, when Hinata had made an unusually venomous remark about Sasuke, one of the girls, who Naruto was sadistically pleased to note had failed the exam, even tried to spread a rumour, not just in the academy but the village at large, that they had been doing _it_ since her tenth birthday. Thankfully that one had died rather than spread.

With the announcement over Naruto and Hinata headed straight for the door, having nothing to collect from their desks today. Shino had beaten them there and was already escaping the sheer stupidity of this class with nothing to do, but without ever seeming to actually be in a hurry.Naruto momentarily considered Shino as a possible object of Hinata's attentions but dropped the thought almost immediately when he realised that the very traits that made Kiba a candidate precluded Shino. But who did that leave in that direction?

Naruto's line of thought was cut short when a hand landed roughly on his shoulder and a familiar antagonistic voice growled equally roughly into his ear, "Not bad _second best_. It really is and achievement for someone like you to come so close to me. Of course you'd be lagging even firther behind if the didn't give out those foolish 'bonus points'."

Naruto met Sasuke's obsidian gaze, at one point he had admired the boy's dedication and talent, but when defeated Naruto had always accepted it and treated each loss as another reason to drag himself a step closer to the unreachable perfection all swordsmen sought. When Naruto had first defeated Sasuke the Uchiha had done the same, but the second time ... Sasuke started overdoing it, damaging his health to fit in ore hours of training, then the gap between them had begun to widen as Naruto surged ahead and Sasuke stunted his own growth and Sasuke got even more crazed. This year Iruka-sensei had taken the so called genius aside for a private chat and he had started eating properly again and scheduling rest as a part of his training plans, but two years of malnutrition and self enforced sleep deprivation had taken a toll, creating a gap between them the Uchiha couldn't clode in a single year at the academy. More than anything Naruto pittied him.

But along with pity there was a fair amount of irritation and impatience at his childish selfishness, it was these emotions that usually coloured Naruto's interactions with the 'avenger', "Why take this up with me Uchiha-_dono_? Shikamaru-san passed the exam with over half his marks coming from 'extra credit points', although I wouldn't be in a rush to argue with him if I were you, not since seven of those points came from the strategy exam."

In his seat by the window Shikamaru looked vaguely non-plussed at the idea of having to deal with the Uchiha, although Sasuke's reluctance to even talk to the genius following his crippling and public defeat in the classes debating contest was well known and it was unlikely he would break that habit now. Instead Sasuke chose to lash out at someone who wouldn't strike back. Hinata would rather be know as a coward than fight, even verbally, against a fellow leaf nin outside training.

"Dont try to hide behind the sloth Uzumaki, that's something your little Hyuuga lover would do. Hmm, maybe it was her idea ... " Sasuke suddenly produced one of his famous sneers, "you do realise that all the bonus points in Konoha wont save you once Hiashi finds out you're boning his heir, don't you?"

Hinata's eyes narrowed at Sasuke's words, something like this happened every time there was a major exam or event on the village, Sasuke was always trying to anger Naruto into attacking seriously so he could gauge his own growth against his more short term target. Sometimes he would insult Hinata, but this was a whole new level, the Hyuuga heiress suddenly stepped forward leaking a killing intent that would doubtless cause Iruka to restrain her before her blow fell. None the less she channelled chakra into her right palm and drove it towards his chest.

But then she stopped. Everyone stopped. In the face of sakki vastly overpowering that of the enraged Hyuuga even Iruka faltered half a step too long to stop Naruto striking Sasuke down. Dropping one hand to his prey's left thigh Naruto's hand came away with one of the Uchiha's own kunai. In less time than it took for even the chuunin Iruka to register what had happened Naruto had made a small incision in Sasuke's under arm, exposing a nerve bundle to open air, opened the avenger's jugular and sheathed the kunai in his left eye socket. Then, as the blood splashed on the floor and fangirls shook in terror, the attacking Naruto faded. Several of those in the room, even several who had passed the exam, dropped in a dead faint from the rushing feeling of suddenly being released from the hallucination caused by Naruto's naked rage. Sasuke, despite being the direct target of that finely honed killing intent, retained consciousness and even managed eye contact with the true Naruto despite his slumped kneeling position on the floor.

"You are unusually vulgar today Uchiha," Naruto spoke calmly and collectedly, despite his open contempt, he pointedly denied Sasuke's name any respectful suffix, "I see that your descent to the level of scum in progressing as rapidly as ever." Final insults delivered Naruto and Hinata calmly exited the room, Naruto being certain to close the door behind him while Iruka called a reminder that all graduates were to reassemble to be placed in gennin cells and assigned jounin sensei in two hours.

Hinata barely had time to hear as Naruto swept her up and his powerful legs had them well out into the street in only a moment, easily outdistancing the pursuing fangirls intent on their deaths. Although the position was nothing new to Hinata, it beign somewhat habitual for them to flee the scene of Sasuke's defeats in this maner, simply being held by Naruto in what was commonly called 'the bridal position' still made her pulse quicken and her face flush uncontrollably.

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Naruto was bouncing with joy while Hinata simply shook her head. Master Saito was out and there was a note stating the Hokage required his attention and that they were to arrange their own lunches. This news means something special to each of them.

To Naruto it meant a meal full of flavour and unhealthy indulgence, a meal free of his master's strange taste for plain hot soba and white rice with pickles.

To hinata it meant yet another hour spent watching in horror as Naruto tried to taste everything imaginable in every single bite. It also meant a plate of gyoza, her one guilty pleasure. Looking at the energetic blonde leaving the dojo brought back a flash of the mental image that had spawned her blushing fit earlier in class ... _hmm, best make that one of my two guilty pleasures ..._

Smiling a very secretive smile the Hyuuga heiress followed her ... training partner out the door. She was mentally disheartened by the thought that he would never return her feelings. After all, while she was certain he cared for her, the only love she saw him display was that of a brother for his younger sister. He couldn't possibly have missed all her attempts at confession, as for his current obsession with guessing who she liked ... it seemed obvious to her that he knew of her crush and was trying to hint in as brotherly a way possible for her to move on to someone else and was trying to help her along by suggesting other boys he approved of.

He was really sweet about it but it hurt her slightly to feel that he wasn't going to return her love, at the moment she didn't feel ready to move on so she had decided to hold on and hope Naruto changed his mind.

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"Hokage-sama." Saito intoned the title, treating it like a greeting. He couldn't quite recall when he had made the transition from using '-dono' to '-sama' but he supposed it was fitting once he had become a proper jounin of the village.

"Saito-san," the third had also altered his mode of address once the former manslayer became his subordinate, although he never used '-kun' as he did with almost all of his shinobi, he still occasionally slipped back into using '-dono' on occasion, "in the past you have, at my request, been able to put the business of your dojo on hold for a time in order to face active duty as a jounin of the village," Saito nodded confirmation but did not speak, "a situation has arisen that requires me to request such action of you for a more greatly extended period than I have in the past."

"Certainly Hokage-sama, the village comes before all else. But in honesty, the dojo has finally matured into a proper place of training as I knew them in my former home. There are now enough students of the level that training those less skilled is the main part of their own training, there aren't enough junior classes to teach for me to take them from senior students who would benefit from the experience. I personally teach only a single class each month now. With that and two of my full time students reaching the rank of gennin and my last taking on a new gennin team of her own, I had plans to submit a request to this affect once the paperwork related to the new team formations had cleared your desk," Saito smiled slightly ironically, "even if only to prevent the rust gathering on my blade."

Sarutobi looked pleased, "It is fortunate then that our needs intersect so, is it not Saito-dono? You see the Daimyo of Ho no kuni maintains an elite guard formed of ten warriors taken, one each, from the major training institutions within the country. Most are monks taken from the various temples that use the Daimyo's land or the successors of famous dojos politically involved with the lord of our domain, but Konoha is obliged by treaty to provide the unit's leader – my own son Asuma. The unit has been called up to quell an uprising in the south while the regular military is occupied repelling incursions across the Lightning country boarder. He will be stuck on peace keeping duties for several months, so I have decided to give his gennin team to you and make him take on a squad from the next graduating year.

Saito paused to consider his options, knowing he couldn't graciously refuse this request but still hopeful of a resolution that would see him back on proper duties sooner he fpoke up, "Very well Hokage-sama, but you know any gennin squad trained by me will be different from their peers. I will train them for months before baptizing them with a mission that will require them to kill."

"Yes I understand, it was those very beginnings that produced me, that produced the fourth," _that produced __Orochimaru__ and __Danzo__ as well,_ while the third didn't voice these darker thoughts he none the less found himself crossing his fingers and hoping, "the assignments are to be announced in a little over an hour, you will then be allowed to meet your team. Your fellow jounin-sensei will be gathering in the staff common at the academy for a light lunch and briefings on your students in about half an hour."

"Hai Hokage-sama." Orders received, Saito vanished from the office, the empty space on his left began to fold over and meet the empty space on his right, turning the space that contained Saito into yet more ... empty space.

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Explaining-ness

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Just as a note - all the famous named blades etc are not actually single swords but all the swords by a single maker, however for the purposes of this fic you should pretend that the name goes to only one sword, presumably the best by that smith

Asauchi – 'shallow forging' basically a crap sword, at least as far as comparing it to the sheer beauty of a katana goes anyway. A sword too poorly made to house one of the spirits associated with the greatest of katanas and thus unworthy of a name. The mass produced katanas issued to officers during wwii and the concealable blades used by yakuza and thugs are both examples of these pale imitations.

Sakura ichimonji – 'single character cherry blossom' a play on the famous kikuuichimonji. It has no significant relation to a certain pink haired git, it's just that sakura is the only other flower I can write as a single kanji.

Meitou – 'named blades' the best of the best katanas ever made, famed in myth and lies, these blades are said to be such masterworks that each holds a unique spirit and character. Examples of such are the muramasa and masamune said to be, respectively, a violent cursed blade that would cut down anything that passed it and a peaceful blade that would never harm an innocent even should a swordsman try and force it to do so.

Kiku ichimonji – ' single character chrysanthemum' written as the one kanji for chrysanthemum, this is one of the more famous of Japan's named swords, popping up all over the place in modern fiction, movies, television and video games. Unfortunately it is also one of the blades I don't personally know the original legends associated with ... presumably you could look up wiki and you can always jfgi. In an interesting coincidence this is the sword popular myth attributes to Okita's wielding, although in ruroni kenshin it is used by sojiro.

Sakki – killing intent or bloodlust, you should be familiar with those terms at least.

School daze! - chapter title 13 of bleach of course :D, i was tempted to use bad standard but i want to keep that for later and the is the last chaper i can use school daze for


	5. Dont kill my volupture

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Don't kill my volupture

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"…shoyu chashu with tonkatsu, unagi, ika, bean sprouts and …" _thud!_ The excited litany of Naruto's quest to order everything the shop sold in one bowl ended suddenly when Hinata brought a heel down atop his foot, "Argh … erm … that'll be all."

Behind the counter Ayame just smiled at the two and turned to take Hinata's orer without a word, "Shio ramen, chashu nashi, kuro gomahan, and a plate of ebi gyoza, fried thank you."

Ayame confirmed the order, seated the two in a corner booth and relayed the choices to her father in the kitchen. She really didn't need to because Hinata only ever changed the stuffing of her gyoza as far as her order went and Naruto would be happy as long as you threw in as much as you could fit in a bowl. Smiling to herself she added a dish of lime sauce for Hinata and one boiled gyoza for Naruto's broth, the two had been eating there ever since before Ayame had been old enough to remember customer's faces and they _had_ just graduated from the academy so she did feel a little celebratory.

While they waited Naruto smiled and chattered about everything from the coming meal to who they might be likely to be teamed up with. Unlike most of the time when he was with people, right now he didn't have to act. He didn't act during training either, but that was serious time, that made his time alone with Hinata the only time he was ever carefree and rowdy because he felt carefree and rowdy.

Momentarily his thoughts turned sour with the question he had pursued before Sasuke's little episode, Sasuke had been in the direction of Hinata's gaze at that time, but if that sakki was anything to judge from the chances of her crushing him were rather higher than the chances of her having a crush on him at that point. But over Naruto's other shoulder had been Iruka, he was certainly mature and skilled and easy to admire, if she was interested in Iruka then Naruto wouldn't compete … couldn't compete…

Then those thoughts were wiped from his mind by the arrival of plates of steaming food.

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"…Yamada Tsubame." Naruto observed the girl as he had all the previous gennin to be placed in teams. The third's oldest grandchild, ironically by hs youngest daughter, was calm and betrayed no emotion at the announcement of her gennin cell, unlike her team mates who were already chatting excitedly. Naruto quickly finished up his impromptu mental exercise by listing off a quick summary of her known skills and abilities before preparing to do the same for each graduate named after her.

"Team six – Akimichi Chouji … " Akimichi, a clan that didn't get much attention in peacetime and tended to get put on guard missions due to their lack in the areas of stealth and espionage but also a clan that truly shone in times of war due to the sheer force they brought to the field of battle, Chouji was no exception, "… Inuzaka Kiba …" Another old friend, Naruto broke off his bored assessments to spare a though that their scores were both low enough to warrant his placement on that team. That may be nice … still looking realistically at the gender distribution of the class the only way he would land on that team involved rather invasive surgery. More likely the third member would be …

"… and Hyuuga Hinata." Naruto nodded to himself bitterly, of course the only female with marks high enough for that team was her. He knew he wasn't going to wind up on the same team as his best friend – there was no one in the class with a passing mark low enough to bring their combined average even close to the rest of the teams announced so far. Of course even knowing in advance it was a disappointment to imagine suddenly not training with her every day after eight years. Next to him Hinata expressed the same thoughts aloud.

Naruto didn't like his chances, some of the remaining male gennin were people he could work with but Tsubame had been the last kunoichi with the right sort of score to wind up on his team that he didn't outright despise and she had already been assigned. All that were left were a pair of rumour mongers and a pair of Sasuke's fangirls, to Naruto's distress the fangirl pair were also the two loudest.

"Team seven – Haruno Sakura …" the fairy flossed idiot began to pray loudly for the Uchiha to be placed with her, "… Nara Shikamaru …" as the prayers gained volume and intensity Naruto considered that if he wound up with an old friend like Shi-kun he could handle the pain of being with Sakura, "… and Uchiha Sasuke." Shikamaru moaned at the misfortune of landing 'short, pale and angsty'. Naruto slumped slightly with the realisation that even among the male candidates the best he could hope for now was someone he didn't openly fight with. Sasuke released a disapproving grunt when he realised that graduation would not mean the escape from screaming fangirls he had hoped. A dozen fangirls squealed with jealousy at Sakura's 'good fortune'. The only person that seemed happy at the decision was Sakura.

Naruto phased out for a while, considering the grim possibilities, and missed the next team to be announced before collecting himself and focussing back on the matter at hand.

"Team nine – Yamanaka Ino …" _damn another screaming fangirl,_ "Aburame Shino …" Naruto began to twitch. With the scores those two brought to the cell average there was only one person in the class who scored high enough to be on their team, "… and Uzumaki Naruto."

Well it could have been worse – Naruto knew for a fact Shino had been deliberately underperforming on his exams to land good team mates and improve his chances of promotion at a later date. Ino was … not hopelessly unskilled and she was one of a very few girls who hadn't taken part in the rumour attacks on Hinata, although that was because she was too busy screaming about Sasuke. Although, now that Naruto thought about it, even Sakura – who was just as loud and obsessed as Ino – had found time to be deliberately cruel to him once or twice, as far as he could remember Ino had simply ignored him without actively hating him.

All up it could probably be a lot worse.

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Naruto watched the procession of jounin wander by in dribs and drabs. At first he had perked up a little in interest when Kurenai had walked in with two others, his long term sempai had only recently been promoted and this year would be her first time teaching gennin. The same was probably true of the other two given the differences between their behaviour and that of the later jounin who seemed more familiar with the process.

Kurenai had called up team six and Naruto was pleased, as well as being more than slightly jealous, that Hinata would have people she got along with as team mates and a sensei she already considered a buddy.

Quickly loosing interest Naruto began to drowse off keeping only one ear open for a mention of his name or team. Each time the door opened Naruto's attention would focus, each time a team left through it he allowed them to diffuse again.

It was thus somewhat of a surprise when a voice spoke without there being any indication of a person entering the room. It was calling his name and it was familiar.

"Naruto," the blonde sat bolt upright and looked at the front of the room. Standing there, looking for all the world like he'd been standing there all day was master Saito, "please bring your team mates to the minor hall." Just as suddenly, in the space of Naruto's shocked blink, he was gone again, neither the sound of the door nor the movement of the curtains betrayed a sign of his passage.

"Err..." Naruto found himself momentarily frozen in an attitude of sleepy confusion before he finally regained himself and looked to see the two other members of gennin cell nine looking at him expectantly. He babbled some excuse as they got up and prepared to go, but as he reached the door he realised that only Shikamaru's team remained, "ok you heard, lets go!"

With his bemused team mates in tow he set off for the only place in town that had ever felt like home. As he passed the doorway he looked back to say bye to his friend when he came up with an amusing thought. A quick look at the clock confirmed it, there was only one jounin, or shinobi of any rank, that Naruto knew to be so routinely tardy. Almost with glee Naruto dashed off to grab a chalkboard eraser, after all – who else could it be but the person responsible for his mster scheduling five hours free time for a two hour meeting?

Pushing his new team out the door he set his trap and called back to his friend, "Hey Shi-kun, ten ryo says this gets Kakashi."

With a spring in his step Uzumaki Naruto led his new team mates to meet his master, who he assumed would be their jounin sensei.

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Once again, as he seemed to do every day of his training , Naruto found himself sitting in the seiza position opposite his master. Today they were in the small outbuilding called the minor hall, used for meditation and receiving guests who were not students of the dojo. Both swordsmen sat next to their sheathed swords, removed from their belts and placed to one side of their sitting position, their wakizashi still sheathed at their hips. Flanking Naruto in a semi-circle such that they were all facing Saito but could still listen to their team mates comfortably were Shino and Ino.

Perhaps comfortably is poor word choice, Shino's normally stoic face was already showing a certain stress despite his glasses and high collar, Ino was constantly squirming, changing height and shifting from side to side as she moved her feet and legs in discomfort. Everyone else ignored her and politely declined comment on her whining and grunting noises.

"Very well, let us begin with introductions. There is a fairly standard model used for new teams throughout the hidden leaf, I'm sure you will pick it up by example," Saito spoke calmly, as though to a crack squad in a briefing room, rather than a group a fresh gennin with no idea what to expect, "I am known as Hajime Saito, the wolf of mibu, my likes – probably meaningless to non-swordsmen, except plain hot soba, my dislikes – even more so, my dreams for the future – almost certainly beyond your grasp until you see a little more of life on the battlefield." Naruto nearly laughed aloud, just like Kakashi no yaro his master had given away nothing but his name. It wasn't that surprising really, the two had been as close to friends as Saito-shisho ever got for years now, "You next girl."

In what she hoped was a friendly tone she began, "Well for starters my name isn't 'girl' it's Yamanaka Ino ..."

Although she was obviously trying to lighten the mood with an, admittedly poor, jest Saito cut her off, "That may be so, but Naruto was 'boy' for eight years before he earned enough respect for me to use his name and you should not assume I will simply give you that privelage before you show me something real. _Girl._"

Ino recoiled as if slapped, slowly she plucked up the courage to press on, "I like Sa..." with a sudden rush of self preservation instinct she realised that answering badly agin could really make working with her new team hard, "Sakura, my friend of many years, we're currently slightly estranged though..." she was surprised how real her 'made up' story sounded. But it wasn't made up at all when she thought about it, not _really_, Sakura was her best friend and she did want them to make up ... Still she pressed on, "I dislike ... people who use superior power to pick on those of lesser skill, _Naruto!_" Ino spared a moment to think about how strange she felt to be defending someone she admired from someone she had always looked down on.

Saito's eyes narrowed on Naruto, "What is she talking about Naruto?"

At his master's tone the blonde looked nonplussed, "Today the Uchiha insulted Hinata, pretty badly, and I ... leaked some sakki to give him a bit of a scare. That's all I swear!"

"Tch, hmm ..." Saito's sigh was more disappointed than angry, "to go that far over words. You lack discipline and control Naruto, far too much so for your years of training. Five hundred push ups and four hours meditation under the tree. If you begin now you may not miss the evening meal.

Ino was a little shocked at what she had unwittingly forced upon her fellow blonde but was finally wise enough to realise that anything else she said would result in making things worse, Naruto was already at five push ups. She continued, "a-and my dream is to become a kunoichi worthy of attention form the person I admire." So there! Even if this jounin looked down on her romantic notions becoming a worthy kunoichi was a goal beyond reproach.

"Very well now you boy." Despite her irritation that her introduction received no comment Ino was quite happy to be out of the spotlight.

"Aburame Shino ... I like bugs and training, I dislike ... things that aren't bugs? ... and not training. My hobbies are training and collecting bugs ... my ambition is to grow strong in my family's style and have the most diverse hives in my clan." Whether Shino truly possessed the cold disinterest of the 'ideal' shinobi or he was simply obsessed with his insectoid minions neither Naruto nor Ino could properly tell. Either way Ino looked slightly green and backed away slightly.

Naruto simply continued his assignment and began his own introduction, "Uzumaki Naruto, yoroshiku, I like ramen and training with Hinata-chan." Naruto stiffened when he realised what he had just said in front of two people who had heard all those rumours, "and Kurenai-san and Junya and Yuuya." He hastened to cover up by throwing in the names of a few other students. Ironically the very two Hyuuga brothers who had bullied him on the day his apprenticeship began had been among the first group of students and the three had become ... non-hostile toward each other. Thinking hard it took Naruto a moment to come up with real dislikes, "I dislike plain hot soba," he stuck his tongue out at the floor without halting his rhythmic movements, "and Junya bragging about being a chuunin after only four years as a gennin, just because he's a higher rank than me. My ambitions are to become a chuunin after less years as a gennin so Junya has to shut up and succeed the gatotsu school."

Shino's eyebrow raised and he actually felt moved to comment here, "Isn't the name of your school the shinmeiryu?"

"Yes, but Kurenai-san will probably wind up taking over the main style because she's the only student to date to master more than one shinmeiryu ougi, but I have been chosen to learn the Gatotsu style ougis rather than the shinmei."

Ino looked between the two, no one had prompted Shino to ask a question as far as she knew, even if he was interested in someone he would remain quiet and find out what he wanted to know in his own way. She also wondered what the differences between the Gatotsu and shinmeiryu were and why they would both be taught at the same school if they were both to be taken over by different people. As she spoke up she was once again cut off by her abrasive sensei.

"Very well, you will get to know one another better in the coming weeks. I am supposed to give you a test, the one final exam that jounin give to their students to see if you have what it takes to be a real ninja, not just your physical skills or knowledge of principles – whether your personality will allow you to shine as a true slayer in the shadows or if the disorder in your psyche will make you crack at a critical moment and cost your village dearly. Every jounin has different views on what it takes but the tests are always hard. Kurenai for example will probably grade her gennin on their ability to handle pressure and mental strain, genjutsu types usually do, Kakashi will almost certainly test teamwork the same way his sensei tested him – by making them choose which one of their group will give up life as a ninja to let the others go on. Every year two gennin in every three fail, some leave the life of ninja behind them, others return to the academy and have another go ...

"I am – as you may have noticed by now, and you must certainly know my reputation – very different to the other leaf nins you see day to day. Normally a shinobi has taken more than enough gennin teams before becoming so blood soaked as I am and need not expose the young to this sort of thing, but I have never taken a team so Hokage-sama has decided that I need this specific experience. There are shinobi in this village more darkened and cruel than me, but they are few ..." just then Naruto completed his final push up and sat to catch the last of his briefing before he headed out to meditate.

"Five hundred, Naruto go and meditate now if you wish to be done in time to be welcome at the dinner table. I will explain your test tomorrow, advanced knowledge will only make it harder." Naruto nodded, taking the hint, and left to meditate. Whatever master Saito had in store for his team mates he was not to know until they faced it.

"Where was I?" Saito began again when Naruto was outside hearing range, "oh yes, I am capable of far more cruelty than kindness so as my test ... tomorrow at dawn I will make Naruto kill you both." Shino's eyebrows raised, a sure sign his eyes were wide under the glasses and Ino gasped and was shaking visibly and near tears already but Saito pressed on, all business as though nothing were wrong with the situation, "A shinobi sees death in a million ways and I cant call you part of the third of your class that passes if I haven't seen what happens when you see death first hand. You will present yourselves, clean in mind and body and prepared to face what comes at one hour to dawn tomorrow. I recommend fasting overnight tonight. Dismissed."

Saito stepped through the door nearest him and locked it, leaving his students no other exit from the minor hall but the one leading outside the dojo walls and waited for a while, listening to them finally getting it together enough to head home. The girl seemed to want to share worried discussion with the boy, but he was silent. Eventually both were out the door and heading in separate directions down the street. Finall once they were completely gone from his senses Saito lit up a cigarette and inhaled strongly, he wouldn't tell Naruto his own mission until tomorrow, once both were in position and prepared. It went without saying that if either failed to turn up they would be back to the academy, both of them clearly understood that.

Saito knew both of their parents, both by reputation and a few sparse occasions of working together, and he was fairly sure what the conversations would be like when they went home tonight. Saito sat back and waited for the string of personal visits he expected tonight.

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Yamanaka Ino sobbed into her mothers arms in sheer terror, when she had told her father about the coming test he had simply told her that he had faced a similar test when he had become a gennin. He said that she should be glad that she was not in hidden mist, where she would be forced to face a friend, imagine what would happen if she was force to kill Sakura or be killed by her.

At that lack of reaction she had fled to her mother and begged for some sort of reassurance. Her mother, who hadn't been an active shinobi in fifteen years now, still remembered what being a shinobi meant. She simply held her daughter and tried to assure her that she wouldn't simply be executed, that she would be given a chance, if she and 'the Aburame boy' could kill 'the Uzumaki bastard' they would pass. She had started to say something about it being a service to the village but her father had stepped in at that point, mentioning some law.

Seeing the fight brewing Ino retreated to her bedroom and cried into her pillow in sheer mortal terror. It never occurred to her to wonder why her mother called Naruto a bastard, or perhaps she just assumed she was referring to the fact Saito had adopted him and he was of unknown parentage. It didn't matter as words were hissed between her parents downstairs about their little girl dying. Her mother seemed terrified about her facing a 'demon' (perhaps Naruto had a reputation as a killer already? Many at the academy whispered that he had killed Mizuki-sensei who had vanished on the night everyone graduated) but her father seemed to think that Saito was secretly arranging for Naruto to be killed so he could be rid of him and Ino and Shino were being given the honour and opportunity for some greatness by doing it.

Without realising it Ino obeyed her new sensei's order to fast by crying herself to sleep and forgetting to eat at all.

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Shino had arrived home and told his father about the coming test and done something very unusual but acceptable because of his age and inexperience. He asked advice.

"You are my heir, the kunoichi is also a clan heir. With the two of you agains a single opponent even the Uchiha should not prevail. You have a very good chance of succeeding in this test, but do not underestimate Naruto – he has depths you cannot yet fathom with only the training you have faced thus far."

As his father left him to clear his mind and prepare for the confrontation one thing stuck in his mind. His father, who was just as adverse to using peoples true names as his new jounin sensei had not only called Uzumaki Naruto by name but he had used his given name rather than his family name.

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Saito stood alone in the glow of his third cigarette, it was midnight and Naruto was long asleep and mumbling happily about being full, despite his complaints about another meal of rice, pickles and smoked salmon while awake. First Aburame Shibi had come to speak to him, or so he thought at first but the two had not spoken while the clan head was visiting. He had simply arrived and studied Saito's face intently for some minutes before finding something that answered his question and left with both having not exchanged a single word.

Yamanaka Inoshi had been a rather more noisy confrontation, while he was hardly one of Naruto's supporters he had long since withdrawn his clan's support from motions in the council against the boy. He hadn't supported any village action to help Naruto but he was at least completely neutral on the subject, the problem was his wife. After years of marriage to him she was more than able to turn his words to her advantage and only hear what she wanted, right now it pleased her to make him seem like a rabid anti-demon container in the eyes of the other gossips, perhaps she even believed it herself.

Ultimately the Yamanaka leader could only ask Saito for some assurance that his daughter would live. It was too late to hope for Ino to back out and just be sent back to the academy for a year, his wife had turned his words on him again, this time making it look like he was forcing Ino to go and kill Naruto while trying to appear to want her to back out herself. Ultimately Saito could give no such assurances, only a promise that three gennin would see death at dawn and that those that didn't get to remain as shinobi would never face it again.

"So how did your team go?" Saito asked the question without looking up, knowing that one of his fellow jounin had just landed behind him.

"Great! I caught them by surprise when we were entering the rooms I set up for us to meet each other in, before we had even told each other our names I had each of them face an illusion of dying at the hands of the one the feel the most strongly for. Not one of them fled. Poor Yukari gave her gennin the same test but they failed badly." Kurenai's voice was bright, chatty and the sort of tone she used when she wasn't facing a serious moment as a kunoichi, "Both the boys saw family members, Chouji was crushed by his father's jutsu in an accident, he has tremendous trust and faith if even my stronger genjutsu cant make him believe his family or friends could hurt him deliberately. Kiba was slaughtered by his own dog, I don't really get it but Inuzakas are truly closely bonded to their companions and when Akamaru was infected with rabies Kiba had to be the one to end it. Of course the genjutsu makes you think you are being killed by the one you feel most strongly for, not the other way around so Kiba screwed up and got fatally wounded, but he faced it like a shinobi too."

Kurenai's voice turned a little odd, "Hinata was disturbing, she didn't see anyone from her family, even when I changed the power of the jutsu to expose all those she feels for none of her family were in the top ten, it just isn't right for a girl of her age. She even feels more strongly for you than she does for her own father Saito. But the person she saw was Naruto. She didn't even question it, he just walked up and said 'I must kill you now' and she nodded and spread her arms to take his sword through her chest. I'm worried about that, at first I thought it was just a cute little crush ... but today I saw her die because he asked her to."

Saito sucked down the last of the smoke before exhaling steadily, "Perhaps I could let you watch my test tomorrow. If what you say is so then I would like to know Hinata's reaction. Hmm ... yes, have her present if you would, have her watch from a separate room with the byakugan. Both so that she cant interfere no matter how much she wants to and so that she knows without a doubt that it is not an illusion. Her reaction could tell you much about whether we should separate the two permanently for her sake."

"But," Saito began to smile oddly, "there is a price for you to get that sort of insight into your student. You have to use that jutsu on me, tonight."

While Saito mentally railed at himself for his stupidity, what if he was wrong about this? What if the wrong person turned up to kill him? Kurenai seemed lost in her own thoughts for a long time as well but when both finally came out of it she began to form seals.

There was silence for a long time as Saito waited for the illusion to come into being, there would be a while because part of it was generated from the target's own mind to make it more believable but both waited with baited breath to see who would come.

"Hajime Saito, the wolf of Mibu."

Relief flooded Saito's body at the voice and he responded in kind, "Hitokiri batousai, Kenshin Himura, servant of the choshu clan."

Saito went through the motions of his predestined loss to the batousai within this illusion without really paying attention, he was too busy being relieved. The batousai that appeared wasn't the wanderer he knew in later years he was once more the potent killer of men that had lived through the revolution. To Saito knowing this meant so many things, the part of him that was the wolf was still strong, he wasn't loosing himself to the life in Konoha. It also relieved him to find that the one killing him right now was not the same person who cast the illusion over him. He was getting quite old for a swordsman and he had been around the block once or twice he recognised the feelings growing inside him for what they were and secretly feared what might come of them. Especially since he was also experienced enough to recognise that this girl half his age shared those feelings.

As the person who created the illusion Kurenai could of course see what was happening. She tried to cover up her inner confusion by thinking about trivial things, like how her masters old enemy moved and how different he looked to what she expected, but under the surface other thoughts moved. On one hand she was glad that she would not have to see herself killing her secret love but on the other she was wounded deeply to know that he felt more strongly about a memory from twenty years ago than her own living breathing self.

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Ino was shaking, upon arrival Saito-sensei had given them white cloth garments, dressed them in the same kimono samurai wore to commit sepuku. Then Shino had been led into another room while she was left to wait, it hadn't been very long at all before Shino had given a grunt and she had heard a body fall to the soil. She had expected the Aburame boy to at least put up a fight, but apparently Naruto had apparently taken him before he could do anything at all. Hinata, who was watching via byakuaga through a wall had screamed and began to sob madly, as her bloodline faded from her face she began to moan a chorus of 'why Naruto?' before Kurenai led her away. Then Saito-sensei had come and told her it was her turn to face the blade.

She faced Naruto in a room splashed with blood, Shino lay in the corner, bubbling and writhing as he drowned in the blood from his punctured lung. _Oh god he wasn't even killed quickly. He just couldn't scream because he couldn't force out air._ It couldn't have been more than a few minutes since Shino had gone in and not more than thirty seconds since she had heard his body hit the ground, he would be dead very shortly.

As she stared at Naruto she wondered why she wasn't running for her life right now, but ever since she put on the robe she couldn't mold chakra or muster the needed spirit to make a break for it, it must have some sort of seal in it used of nins facing execution. All she could do was stare in terror at Naruto, he was openly weeping and looked very hesitant to repeat what he had obviously just done to Shino on her. The blood covering his blade and splattered over his hakama and skin showed that he had mustered the resolve once today.

Then his shaking stopped as he composed himself, he looked her in the eyes with a face that spoke of sincere apology. Then he changed, his eyes shifted to yellow before becoming streaked with red and slitted, rather than a fellow nin he took on the form of a shinigami, simply hungry for another soul. Then it was over, he was across the intervening distance in a heartbeat and his sword pierced her lung just where it had Shino's moments before. She tried to scream in agony but the air rushed from the hole in her chest and left her gasping for air she could no longer hold, but she was luckier than Shino, he had been left to drown of suffocate but Naruto's strike had also pierced her heart and her consciousness was already fading. She could feel her life flowing onto the ground with the red stream as she was enclosed by the darkness.

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Well, since so many people have alearted me now I really do have to type up more, I've got quite a lot more of the story written in my math note book now than I have posted so if I take too long to update just msg me to stop writing more and actually get soem ready to post ... except now the next few chapters will be different to what I originally planned. It should go back to plan once the team's first mission starts in a chapter from now actually ... unless another great idea strikes

This is all VFSNAKE's fault by the way. You also get the blame because I'm so horribly offended by you referring to me as 'he' in the most recent chapter of c and d (I poke out my tongue at you in a childinsh manner).

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Eplaining-ness –

Title – taken from chapter 272 of bleach, a very Orihime centric chapter, but also full of her suffering and rather appropriate given that ending eh?

Shoyuu – soy sauce, in this case ramen with a soy sauce based broth – mangen tasty and my fav from my time in Tokyo

Chashu – pork, the bits you all see in naruto's bowl every episode :P A bit redundant here as we had to specify no chashu if we didn't want it at every place we got ramen.

Unagi – eel, tasty in sushi and as yakiniku but I haven't had it in ramen before

Ika – squid, tasty as.

Chashu nashi – without chashu, I got really good at saying this while in japan cause one of the girls didn't eat pork (oddly not for religious or health reasons she just doesn't like it) and I was the official 'sayer of things'

Kuro gomahan – rice with black sesame seeds, tasty. I haven't been able to enjoy good rice ever since I came home to Australia

Ebi gyoza – prawn gyoza, gyoza are the dumpling things you usually get as apertifs at Japanese restaurants. They come fried or boiled depending on your taste.

Seiza – 'correct sitting', sitting on your feet basically, you all watch anime you've seen scenes of tea ceremonies before, sitting like that.

The name thing - i dont like to use people's names when talking to them directly, i think it's very rude. mainly because repeatedly using someone's name in conversation (esp when speaking to them one on one rather than in a group) is exercising power over them, which isnt nice to do


	6. Lesson 1

Well done to shamee for knowing where shinmeiryu comes from, rather than love hina though i will be referencing the shinmeiryu from mahou sensei negima, by the same author. i didnt reall know what style Saito used in factual history so that was interesting to find out too. but since i'm writing in anime style and hinata and kurenai will need some ougi i will be sticking with the shinmeiryu

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Lesson 1: One strike

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Ino coughed and felt the blood from her internal injuries dribble down her chin to join the steady flow welling from her chest wound. The loss of pressure removed a lot of blood from her brain and if pain was not keeping the sudden rush of delirium at bay she might even have giggled aimlessly. After all her father had obviously thought there would be some trick and that she would survive to eat dinner tonight, too bad she wouldn't get to see the look on his face when he found out.

The lack of blood flowing in her brain sent her into a hysteric depression, but with a pierced lung she couldn't wail her terror and anguish. The exquisite pain suppressed her sadness as she had a bout of irrational anger that just when she was about to be killed and he could have saved her, and got to know her, and started a deliriously happy life together Sasuke was off with that bitch Sakura. She cursed his name irrationally for a moment, betting that if Shino was still alive he would have saved a team mate, she didn't even blame Naruto for not saving her – after all, he was the one killing her and it would be stupid to saver her from himself.

As more and more blood left her system she became capable of less and less complicated thought, until at last, right before the darkness took her, all that was left was a terrified and desperate longing for her family.

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Ino looked up, she was kneeling where she had sagged to the floor as she died ... died?

She looked up to see Naruto, emotionless and blood soaked standing over her. But even as the terror gripped her once more he was fading slightly, then he was parted like a mist as another Naruto, this one clean of blood but face stained with tears, came flying toward her, a picture of terrified anguish as he gathered her up in his arms and began to cry and moan a mixture of apologies and relieved 'you're alright's.

As Ino stood Naruto let her go to kneel at her feet and continue his teary litany. Slowly it all came back to her, she had just died. It must have been an illusion; she could feel genjutsu chakra fading. But there was no trace whatsoever where Naruto had actually 'killed' her – only on Shino's corpse so ... It must have been a hallucination induced by sakki like he did to Sasuke.

Suddenly Ino felt a rush, all those things she had thought weren't real, she was filled with joy as the genjutsu blood covering Shino faded and he stood up and when she realised she hadn't been sentenced to death. She was filled to the brim with a euphoric relief. Looking down to find Naruto finally looking up into her eyes and hearing Shino approach she finally fully understood the ordeal she had just faced, her face split into a smile. Then she punched Naruto in the face.

She expected him to roll with it and lessen the impact so she threw out as much force as she could to make up for it. Naruto, however, seemed to think he deserved it and rather than lean back with it he straightened his back and held firm. As such, rather than having his head snapped back and a blood nose, Naruto felt the left side of his jaw give way where he refused to let flexible flesh give, snapping cleanly and sending a pair of teeth rolling across his tongue.

It didn't bother Naruto – he felt he deserved it fully, perhaps more – since discovering the regeneration that came from being the nine tailed jinchuuriki Saito-sensei had taken advantage of it and the blonde had been worked so hard in his training that he would now be permitted an hour's meditation for an injury that would have other students sent to face a qualified iryou-nin and as such was trained harder because such injuries didn't slow his training at all. Ino, on the other hand, was horrified, she suddenly her own barrage of apologies as thought he hadn't just shown her enough sakki to stop a civilian's heart on eye contact. Shino, who was acclimatising to the constant surprises associated with his whiskered team mate's presence had noticed what Ino missed – Naruto's jaw setting itself – and managed to take it in while keeping his usual expression ... this time. Observing his team mates as they were brought together more by a single shared experience than years together in the academy had managed. Shino chose to risk a small smile, confident that it would go unnoticed.

"..n't think Hinata was ready to see that yet, is all I'm saying." As soon as Kurenai mentioned Hinata Naruto forgot his jaw completely and his attention was on her.

"Hinata saw that?" Naruto's heart was as lead, _Hinata saw me ... do that?_

Saito looked at his most accomplished student with a scowl that said, _see? Wouldn't it be nice for you to be aware of how loud your voice is with gennin in the room?_ Kurenai ignored him, "Yeah, she ran off right after you did Shino. I'm giving her a little time to calm down before I try to explain the situation to her."

"She doesn't know it wasn't for real?" Naruto began a mad dash for the door, in his panic his feelings for the Hyuuga were clearly written on his face, even to his fellow gennin.

"Stop."

After eight years together Naruto couldn't not obey his shisho, he stopped and composed himself before turning, "Yes master?"

"Hinata was watching through the wall via byakugan, what is the significance?"

"Master I ..." Naruto began, his voice cracking.

"Stop," Naruto stopped, "You are a shinobi first and a man second. What is the significance?"

Naruto forced his emotions down and thought about it like a shinobi. After several seconds he had the answer, "The byakugan cant pierce the hallucinations caused by sakki."

Saito's face softened, "Go to her." Naruto was out the door before the other gennin realised that he had answered correctly, their sensei's face returned to it's normal, fairly intimidating, state.

"Why would you want him to think about ways to defeat the byakugan? Apart from exams, what reason could a leaf have to fight the byakugan?"

"Ten years ago we would have said the same thing about the sharingan, boy."

"Are you saying that a Hyuuga is going to betray us and wipe out his clan too?" Ino sounded quite incredulous.

It was Kurenai who answered her, "As ninja, it is our duty to always remember that it's better to be prepared for something that never happens than it is to not be prepared for something that does."

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Aburames always tended to go solo or get shifted in when other teams needed an extra member once they reached chuunin rank so as gennin they were usually placed with team mates from clans with similar practices, thus the library contained generations of observations concerning Hyuuga team members. Throughout the history of the leaf Aburame gennin had reached the same conclusion as Naruto, but none had written down what Shino wanted to know – why?

Finally, after a few hours of searching, just when he was ready to give up so that he wasn't lacking sleep on his first day of training, he found an entry, '... clearly the byakugan pierces illusions by seeing the chakra that creates them and interpreting it, whether by disrupting the calm needed for this process or because the terror of death needs no chakra to throw up violent images. Either way the Hyuuga refuse to acknowledge this weakness and their absolute assurance that whatever the byakugan perceives must be true becomes as much a hindrance as a ...'

Shino took this information to heart, Saito-sensei and Kurenai-san were both jounin so they must know better than a gennin. Than and he found some quite interesting reports of political violence between their clans among his reference materials.

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Naruto groaned as the built up lactic acid made every squat an effort drowned in blinding pain. His mind still managed to be elsewhere, despite the self inflicted torture he called training. He was thinking about Hinata.

When he went to comfort her she was already calm, her pale eyes free of tears. Even before he could say anything she told him she understood it was part of being a ninja and that no matter what he was still her Naruto-kun. Even though she had kept a straight face when she claimed not to be bothered, a stream of relieved tears met his revelation that it had been fake. He held his long time friend until the weeping stopped and for a long time after that. She told him about her own gennin test, she had known it was a genjutsu from the beginning because of the byakugan but between it being placed via sound rather than sight and Kurenai's vastly superior skill she hadn't been able to cast it off. She had seen Naruto kill her, even if she knew it was an illusion, and the next day she saw Naruto kill Shino for real, she was terrified.

For a long few moments when she had looked into his blue eyes with her white tinged with pink from crying, he had contemplated acting on his emotions kissing her. He couldn't follow the emotions in her eyes but she looked like she might not have minded it. He held back because he didn't want to take her first kiss when she was so emotionally confused, the whole idea felt wrong. Even if she might have reciprocated right then Naruto just couldn't take advantage of her, especially knowing that somewhere out there was a shinobi she had once told Kurenai she would leave her clan to marry if they tried to deny her. Amidst all this the fact that she had called him _her_ Naruto-kun slipped by him.

A flash of pain from his left leg sent white spots across his vision for a moment. It was ironic that such a simple task caused him so much more pain than the one he was using it to warm up for. He was performing standing squats while suspended via chakra from the underside of a tree branch. While it was initially odd because it used the exact opposite muscle groups to normal squats it was beautifully simple compared to other exercises he had done that day, squatting at ninety degrees to the direction of gravity was particularly nasty.

That was the problem really, Saito-shisho had asked him quite early in his training to choose what sort of chakra skills he most wanted to master ..._ really master_, and of course Naruto said, without any thought whatsoever, 'I want master movement like you master'. So now Saito made sure that Naruto was peerless in any movement skill before he was allowed to touch the training for another. So far he had perfected kawarimi to a degree many chuunin didn't even know existed. He could replace into and out of a hold, he could henge while his body was technically non-existent as the switch was made and could replace himself with another ninja who was actively resisting his efforts to do so. Most prized, unknown even to many jounin, were his abilities to switch two objects when he was in contact with neither and his ability to replace only a part of himself.

Finally satisfied, Saito-shisho had let him begin learning wall walking and he was almost good enough at that to begin water walking, all he had to do was move on any surface, at any angle exactly the way he did on the ground. So twenty push-ups, sit-ups and squats facing up the wall, down the wall and along the wall to both the left and the right. A full eighty reps of each exercise performed clinging to the wall at six different angles to the ground. Sideways on the vertical wall was the worst but he was up to his last set now and sheer tiredness made what should have been one of the easiest parts of the routine sheer hell.

Taking his mind of the strain with the skill of long practice Naruto looked over at his team mates. For each of his gennin Saito tried to pick a chakra exercise that best complimented their specialty and then gave them the hardest and most in depth version he could, while they worked on that the others worked on a much simplified version suited for normal shinobi who don't specialise in that area. So while Naruto destroyed his legs Shino and Ino chased kunai.

First Saito would throw a kunai in the air above a wall, then as it reached the peak of it's flight he would name a student. The named student would then have to dash madly up the wall to catch the kunai before gravity brought it back and it struck the top of the wall. They were both amazing, they had learned wall walking in only twelve hours, not surprising when one considered that they were both capable of chakra 'type' manipulations unique to their clans. Only two days later and Ino, the faster of the two, could scale a ten metre wall and still catch a kunai that fell from only one metre above the wall height, Shino – who was by his own admission more inclined to rely on long range jutsu and cunning than speed – was not far behind needing only half a metre more than Ino to make it up the wall in time.

Saito flicked a kunai, Shino gulped and tensed judging from the force applied to it this one would go a little lower than his current best and it was his turn to chase. Ino also tensed, occasionally their sensei would call out the name of someone whose turn it was not to make sure they were on the ball and if she was caught unawares by one at this height she wouldn't make it. The knife sailed up and as it reached it's peak both gennin tensed and shifted their feet.

"Naruto."

The whiskered blonde rappelled off a pair of trees to land at the starting line next to his team mates and began a mad dash, he should have known that the kunai thrown just as he finished his last squat would be meant for him. He slapped a palm on the smooth surface and moved chakra through it, hoisting himself to his feet for three steps, it didn't look like he was going to make it. As he came within two body lengths of the top he threw himself flat, reaching one hand up and sticking, allowing the force of his dive to swivel his feet upward catching the kunai with chakra on his foot.

Saito watched with hidden satisfaction as rather than hang limply his student sagged to sit on the wall, gripping with chakra form his knees rather than hanging limply as most would after such a dash. He was no less tired than another might be, the distinction between ground and wall was being blurred for him on a reflexive level. Ino and Shino were both past the level of control where a normal gennin would be taught water walking and now Naruto had a mastery of wall walking suitable for a specialist in movement jutsu, it would seem that tomorrow's movement session would require a river. Since Naruto had finished however it meant today would be moving on to Ino's chakra projection training.

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Ino felt the sweat trickle down her face, after the sprint training they had undergone on the wall it should have been nice to be working on a breathing exercise but somehow it didn't work like that. Her already sore muscles shook violently with the strain as she lowered herself into a cross-legged squat, the muscles along her shoulder blades quivered in time with her abused legs as she forced her arms out in slow motion strikes on opposite sides of her body. Many young and inexperienced gennin looked down on slower and more controlled forms such as pung ryu do and tai chi but no experienced ninja argued against them in terms of the advantages they gave a practitioner in full speed combat when practiced correctly. Those who thought them was easy to be of any fitness benefit had never performed a full routine.

On top of the sheer physical strain however Ino was flirting with chakra exhaustion as well. All the chakra she had remaining was moving about in the air around her, she had learned a simply chakra manipulation, one of the odd ones that blurred the line between 'type' and 'element' manipulations, that allowed her to make her chakra glow visibly. It was completely useless in battle, the chakra being actually acting as a calming agent and used for sedative jutsu when the patient needed to remain conscious, but it made the chakra visible and helped gennin learn what certain chakra form manipulations actually did, making it much easier for them when it became necessary to work with non-visible chakra. Right now a selection of chakra shapes spun around her body in accompaniment to her movements, if she lost control of one of them she wouldn't have enough chakra to remain conscious and she would loose control of the others, a net chakra loss that would require hospital time.

Topping off the Blonde girl's hell was the horrifying mental strain of maintaining her chakra control while co-ordination her movements. Imagine, if you will, maintaining a chakra 'type' manipulation on seven separate and moving bodies of chakra, having to keep the shapes of each one clear in your mind at all times and keeping all of them moving along a predefined path around your body – a cube rotating on a diagonal axis by one hand, a pyramid balanced on the fore finger of the other, a cone and a sphere passing each other on a helix shaped loop up one arm, across your chest, down the other and back, a pair of spheres with rippling surfaces by your knees and a star shaped object alternately increasing and decreasing the number of it's points just in front of your stomach – all of this while trying to remember all the nuances of position and stance that came with a primarily control based kata. Lets not forget that a moment's distraction from any of these factors would put her out for a day or two. Amidst the soreness in her limbs and tiredness from lack of chakra a fierce pain was beginning to burn just behind her forehead.

Far away from Ino's self contained torture Shino was on his knees, no longer able to hold his mask in place (and perhaps beginning to feel he didn't need to around his team mates and sensei) he was panting openly and heavily, sweat gathering on the tip of his nose as he hung his head in exhaustion. The Aburame heir was amazed at the endurance of the blonde male on his left, having used up half again as much chakra as himself in this session Naruto had yet to fall from his standing position even once. Seeing the tag on the kunai recognise Naruto's unique chakra signature and turn orange Shino Struggled to regain his feet, he stood with his hands limp at his sides but his chakra was ready for the task to come.

Saito-sensei gave a tug on the wire running through the loop on the kunai's handle and reclaimed his weapon. He touched the tag he had designed to change to a different colour on contact with each of his student's chakra's and it turned white again like it was supposed to when it touched his chakra. After a few moments he selected a tree and threw the kunai, giving Shino the go ahead to begin the task once more. The idea was simple, all he had to do was channel a little chakra into the tag, in practice the fact that he was never within five metres of it's resting place and moving outside his small circle on the ground was forbidden made this exercise very draining.

Each had their own preferred method, Naruto liked to simply throw a glob of his chakra at the tag as hard as he could, because that required a greater store of chakra but less control, whereas Shino was the exact opposite, preferring to send out questing tendrils to make the most of his chakra control and expend as little chakra as he could. Naruto was able to repeat the process more times but Shino could complete a single repetition faster, with an inaudible chuckle Shino contemplated that in this exercise at least, he and Naruto were at the same time equally skilled and the exact opposite of each other.

Shino knew that the tenketsu best suited for power were over the heart and the navel since they both directly contacted the body's actual chakra reserve but he preferred to use the tenketsu called the third eye, on his forehead, for exercises like this since while it was not able to output much chakra at a time it was situated right over the frontal lobes – closer to the centre of thought. A tendril extended from his face, feeling for all the world like another limb and he blindly groped around the tree he could feel under his 'fingers' for a second or two before feeling the kunai and sliding his grip along to the tag. It turned light blue before his eyes and he relaxed and drew his mostly unspent chakra back to himself before sagging once more to a kneeling position.

Saito-sensei flicked the kunai out again, the tag once more purged of colour and Naruto raised his closed fist taking several moments to from a ball of chakra tight enough that it wouldn't completely dissipate before reaching the target and opened his hand. Shino felt the area of chakra density rush past him at high speed before it slowed to a civilian walking pace as it got further from it's origin. Naruto sweated in concentration as he struggled to keep the rapidly dispersing cloud moving toward his objective after six more tense seconds the tag faded to orange once more.

Observing this Shino amended his observations – Naruto wasn't actually slower, just shorter in range. Within his two metre comfort zone Naruto was actually faster than him, up to ten metres he produced only half again as much speed as Naruto, but outside that range he was either up to three times faster or his loud team mate simply couldn't keep his chakra together until the target.

Mind full of thoughts about how his own abilities best integrated with those of his group Shino began to stand, ready for his next turn. When Saito-sensei threw the kunai he blanked his mind completely, preferring to perfect the task at hand, so that his team would never be exposed to a threat they couldn't face due to ranged jutsu.

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Sino closed his eyes. Well maybe he did, he couldn't actually tell if they were open or not since not only sight but all of his five 'civilian' senses were sealed by a tag he wore. He was honing his chakra senses. Deep in the forest he had learned that chakra wasn't something that only humans and animals and his bugs had, every other living thing possessed chakra, with enough effort trees and fungi and even moss could be sensed.

Training with his new sensei he had learned that other things held chakra if you looked close enough. Rocks had earth chakra and some lingering water chakra from the last rains and the faintest hint of fire chakra that was the rock's 'memory' of a time, millennia ago, when it had been hot and runny, dozens of kilometres bellow the surface. Wood, everything from a rotting stump to cut and polished furniture, held a memory, in the form of chakra, of a time when it had lived in the sun and flowered every spring. Even the air carried with it wind chakra mixed with water from the humidity, earth chakra from dust in the air and even some lightning chakra lingered from a storm three days earlier and some seventy kilometres away.

The problem was the amount, moving streams or air currents were hard but doable, but sensing the chakra from a rock in his hand or a puddle at his feet amidst the sheer living energy of so many trees was like trying to overhear a whispered conversation taking place on the other side of a crowded market place. But with enough effort he managed even that. The one time a small rabbit had wandered into the clearing while his senses were pushed this far it had been like staring at the sun with fully dilated pupils and having an explosion tag go off while attached to his ear drum all at once.

He was looking for his sensei who had subdued his chakra flow to about that of a slow moving stream and walked away with a minute's head start. He wouldn't go more than twenty metres away but that much time gave him a good opportunity to blend in with the background chakra.

Shino slowly combed the area ... searching. Saito-sensei said that he would move on to a new exercise once he could expand his mind to sense a stream level chakra source at the same time as that of a battle ready gennin without experiencing noticeable pain. But the wolf jounin had once mentioned that the elite among the sense specialists could feel the chakra even from things completely synthetic like plastics and that he would move on once he dodged a sandwich bag full of beanbag beans. Saito had been joking about setting each of them a truly unthinkable target at the time but Shino was fascinated by the idea. Theoretically everything that was made had chakra, even if you made something from a material with absolutely no chakra it would gain a small trace from the maker as it's 'memory' of being made. But plastic, it was made from materials with the lowest naturally occurring chakra to begin with, it was formed chemically – driving even more of the chakra out, it was moulded, shaped and assembled by machines that had themselves been made by other machines and so on all the way back to the creators of the first devices in the chain, whose chakra must surely be long lost among all the things the machines have made since then...

Some shinobi believed that the very finest swords had so much of their creators' soul invested in them – and the souls and passions of those who had wielded them over the ages – that they were technically more alive than many naturally occurring phenomena. On the flip side even corpse was less dead than a plastic bottle according to conventional chakra theory, to prove that even that extreme was not truly without at least existence ... or to make a truly chakra-less object, something that truly didn't have any of reality's intrinsic energy to make it real ... the possibility of going beyond what had ever been contemplated drove at the Aburame.

With conviction Shino sharpened his mind and reached out. "Seven metres away, two hundred and thirteen degrees from my current heading, two metres above ground level." Shino had located his sensei.

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Not too far away a pair of blue eyed blondes made use of one of the grandest gifts ever left to Konoha by her first Hokage. Training area three was, as the name suggested, the third oldest training area in the village. Called 'kogami no horou', it was one of the villages true masterpieces, consisting of over twelve thousand box hedges, each cut into a perfect five metre cube, each animated, even to this very day, by a potent mokuton jutsu.

The price for using the training area was that the seals placed on the ground would eat up every bit of chakra you used once you were done with it, as such as long as the area never fell into disuse it would remain green and pristine. Even if two jounin used their highest ninjutsu in a battle here (and indeed the area had been the sight of many a successful defence during times of war) the fact that more chakra would be used in the area meant that the much greater damage would be completely gone by morning.

Repairing the damage to the trees and the landscaping was only one function of the maintaining jutsu, the other – and most amazing to visitors (read, attacking armies) was the way the bushes shuffled around to create a completely new topiary maze every night. Today's was particularly hard.

To an outsider it was an amusing and puzzling sight, two blondes, a boy and a girl, walked side by side, each held out a hand as though grasping the other so they didn't get separated. This was the first puzzling thing because, even though their postures clearly suggested that's what they were doing, neither was actually in contact with the other at all. Secondly they were both arguing loudly, but yet again it was odd, the girl insisted loudly that she shouldn't have listened to him at the last turn, she wanted to go left but no... The odd thing was, the boy was shouting angrily at the girl for making him turn right at the last turn instead of going left like he wanted.

A more informed observer, one who for example recognised the two as students of Hajime Saito, might realise that the two had some very heavy duty genjutsu tags attached to their clothing, obscuring their senses completely. Hence one might make the connection that the two could not in fact hear what the other was saying, indeed neither probably realised they were talking, being both unable to hear their own voices and unable to feel whether or not their mouths were moving. Likewise they quite possibly thought they were holding on to one another to avoid being separated, but just like they couldn't know that they were talking, neither of them could actually feel their grip, or lack thereof, on the other.

So as Ino and Naruto continued their task of navigating the maze via the sense of chakra in the trees surrounding them, they bickered completely obliviously at one another and grasped meaninglessly at air.

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Kurenai tapped her fingers in time with her thoughts, on the table in front of her was the day's completed report for the Hokage. Not that there were enough hours in a day for the wizened elder to read a full report covering each team in his village, what actually warranted his notice were the mission reports for all missions ranked B or higher (only the mission's completed report - no progress reports graced his desk unless the mission was S-ranked) and the quarterly update on the combat statistics of all of his shinobi. Every other piece of paper the village generated was assessed for anything that might require the Hokage's attention by secretaries and then filed away when they found nothing. Nothing that warranted the old man's urgent attention made it to paper before someone came and told him personally anyway, more often than not he already knew, even then, somehow...

With only the smallest glance at her sake cup, which she was holding back on drinking until after her duties were complete, she scanned the paper before her to make sure it held everything it needed. _One D-rank missions complete, four hours training, minor damage to rock formations in training area twelve, sparred competitively against __gennin cell nine, minor damage to turf of training are three, self repaired._ That was it really, the cost of fixing up the training areas would come out of their mission fee but since it was only stone it would be fixed by jutsu and wouldn't cost a significant amount, the turf would have since new turf would actually have to be bought and laid, but the famous jutsu that maintained the first's training grounds had done that for them. With a feeling of one laying down a great weight Kurenai folded the paper and slipped it into an envelope, which she stowed in her pouch, now her duty was complete for today and she was just a regular woman with the night off until she met with her team in the morning. With a smile on her lips the jounin reached for her sake.

Before her hand had moved even halfway the saucer was whisked away by a long fingered hand and raised to smiling lips, before being emptied down an open throat. Kurenai groaned in frustration.

"Anko," it wasn't really a greeting as much as a veiled threat and an exclamation of true irritation.

The special jounin's pupil-less brown eyes smiled back happily, "Mmm, that was nice, here," the snaky kunoichi produced a fresh saucer and a full bottle of sake, pouring into the fresh cup for Kurenai and into the stolen cup for herself.

Kurenai sighed, she couldn't really stay angry, that's just the way Anko was besides, the full bottle she offered in compensation was of rather higher quality than what Kurenai had been willing to buy when she thought she was having a quiet drink alone. With Anko apparently off duty as well tonight it was suddenly promising to be a late start for her team tomorrow. But she also recognised the look on her friend's face and it told her she might not find what was coming as amusing as Anko obviously did.

"I hear Saito asked you to use _tomo-shi_ on him. Good sign for you eh? Well ... obviously watching him die wouldn't be nice for you but to have him trust you enough to let you see what he sees under such a personal experience is obviously a good sign for you right? It cant be too long now before you two move on to some special _private_ ... grappling lessons, then you should even get to see him unsheathe his ..."

"Anko," the red eyed woman cut across the banter, "if you make another pun about 'seeing if he uses the long sword' I swear I'll leave you here to drink alone."

Anko, however, didn't miss a beat, "Actually I've moved past that, matured if you will. I was actually considering the idea hat be might have a short sword and wield it with such incredible skill he is incomparable to some normal jounin with even the mightiest of weapons!" the last was said in a rush so Kurenai couldn't cut off her childish speculation.

The genjutsu mistress just sighed in resignation, "You know that's not what I'm interested in him for ..."

"But you sure as hell wont turn it down if there's a chance of getting it will you?" the louder kunoichi cut in with a huge grin.

"Well ... err ... that's not the point here!" Kurenai found herself momentarily flustered, it must be the sake since she was used to Anko's vulgarity by now, "It's just ... when I see him I see every kunoichi's ideal partner. Not like the civilians with their vowing to protect each other and the 'I swear to die for you' crap, someone who would vow to fight by your side for your whole life, someone who would kill for you." The first half was like quoting a generalised notion of what shinobi thought kunoichi wanted from them, but the dark haired woman continued in a much softer thicker voice, "Someone I would kill for."

Kurenai said something like this most times they drank together lately, but tonight she seemed really moved by the idea, like she was more affected by what she had seen than she let on. Anko, despite her appearance and attitude, was a jounin and could look underneath the underneath to see Kurenai's emotions displayed like a book right now. She decided she didn't want to and looked away.

"You know, last night, an old enemy came for him when I used the jutsu, the same one he fights in his mind every time he goes into a real battle. They fought and I saw and I saw everything, for the first time ever I saw him lay everything in the open, use all his skills and talents in battle. I thought he it was incredibly close when he fought those six missing nins last year and came in with the muscles in his arm severed, but what I saw the night of the gennin tests ... he was playing with them Anko. He let six nuke-nin, all chuunin or higher, injure him on purpose to make the battle more interesting. But that night ... he went all out for real ... and the illusion ... I know it's meant to be based on the target's mind but ... if he really is out there somewhere and he has survived numerous fights between them then I don't doubt what the jutsu showed me of his skill. The two of them were like gods, towering over me ..."

Kurenai shook a moment and somehow Anko held her tongue to listen, "Like a pair of gods, that's what I saw in my mind, the one Saito-shisho called 'batousai' was like a towering dragon, he moved so fast that my illusion dissolved at some points and just a cloud of chakra moved across the square before it reformed into him. But Saito-shisho ... he was just as fast, they were beyond my sight ... they might even have been faster than Kakashi could see." Anko frowned as Kurenai dropped the name of the only jounin the two both knew whose senses were beyond dispute, "He was like a wolf, soaked in blood and as tall as the dragon, a god or their messenger, dominant like a king. It is ... I cant describe it Anko."

Anko decided to change the topic, and to make her friend aware of something she had been trying to bring up for a while, "You've only been a jounin for a couple of months now right?" the red eyed jounin nodded, "so you haven't been to the jounin memorial ceremony yet ..."

She had of course been to the chuunin ceremony but the annual remembrance hadn't come around while she was a jounin yet. She knew how it went of course, the only difference was that the jounin ceremony was presided over by the Hokage. First they would raise a toast in honour of those who had attended the last service but not survived to attend the current one and to wish each other luck and hope that they weren't honoured with the same toast in a year's time, then the official proceedings started. The Hokage would name a great loss that shinobi experienced and those who had experienced it would drink to the memory of their loved ones. The night always started with family, the first toast was 'all those who have lost a parent' by the time they became jounin almost all shinobi who's parents weren't civilians would drink to honour at least one predeceasing parent, then the really hard losses would start being named.

It was a natural and expectable thing for one's parents to pass on ahead of them but then the Hokage moved on and said 'all those who mourn a child'. It was very unnatural and hurtfully common among ninja for children to die young and at this point many would be shedding tears openly in front of their fellow leaves who might otherwise remain stoic. From there the third would raise a glass to every great emotional scar a ninja might accumulate. To the ninja of Konoha having the Hokage lead a remembrance like this was a similar feeling to what those of less cruel professions might get from having a saint preside over a loved one's funeral.

Anko decided to air what she needed to say carefully, "On that night only two shinobi under fifty drink more than me an' Ibiki, there's Kakashi o'course, I mean he served as a jounin in the great war when the rest of our age group were just running supplies and messages. But Saito drinks quite a few cups too, only the council and Hokage-sama seem to have more to remember than him." Anko swallowed, unusually serious as she approached the point of her meandering speech, "He drinks when Hokage-sama calls for 'all those mourning a spouse' you know. He's been married and lost her ..." Anko watched he friend's face very carefully, she couldn't see through people like Ibiki and Kakashi but the emotions on Kurenai's face were clear as day to her, she chose to hurry on, regretting saying those words even though she knew she had to let her friend know, she pushed on, as if trying to rub out her own necessary honesty, "he also drinks for 'given orders that resulted in a subordinate's death', 'knowingly ordered a subordinate to die' and 'killed someone who might have become a close friend outside the circumstances in which you met'."

It was too late however, no matter how much she felt Kurenai had to know that Saito was a widower the look on her face when she found out was too much, Anko suddenly whished there was some way she could have kept her completely ignorant of the facts without doing her more harm than good.

Kurenai paid her portion of the drinks tab and wandered toward her home her head full of images of a mighty wolf battling a dragon and her shisho pushing her away because he couldn't let go of a woman who must have died before he came to the village of leaf, over eight years ago. The thought that held the longest however was the sheer bloodlust in his voice as he had confronted the person he felt most strongly for, that 'hitokiri batousai'. When she remembered that it seemed possible that Saito had simply moved on from his wife's death and the desire to fight, the part of him that was every bit as sharp as his sword was simply far to strong for any hint of romantic interest to enter into the arena of his feelings, of all things that thought hurt her the most.

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That was rather intense, I feel really strange. I'm really confused by the last section. I don't know where it came from, it cant be any part of my experience that's for sure.

Because I haven't had a relationship longer than six months, (or even a relationship that lasted more than a night in the last two years) I don't exactly do romance from experience yo. (I was going to have a little detail on why that is here because this is the internet and I'll never meet any of you in person so why not? But it turned out that it was surprisingly hard to write those things down. Suffice to say that sex is not possible for me and, while some guys think their love is strong enough to stay with me even without it, after a few months they cant help it and go looking elsewhere) so I asked savage-kun for help. Hah blind leading the blind there, my erstwhile brother has had even less meaningful relationships than a dead hamster. Still, he is responsible for the stuff Naruto thinks about Hinata near the start.

VFSNAKE was rather more helpful in providing a good jumping off point for the scene with Anko and Kurenai.

The remembrance ceremony was a new concept I came up with on the train home this very day, all the stuff after that is mine as well, but I honestly have never felt the way I described nor known anyone who has ...

i was originally going to post a chapter where everyone really did die, just to see what reaction there was. i was also going to include just the scene VFSNKE wanted, with ino's mother holding her dead baby ... but frankly if i dont start cutting out some of the things i want to put in the story the gennin wont make it out of the village until chapter 20

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Explaining-ness –

Name - from bleach as always, although i am thinking of adding chapter names from other sources ... chapter 059. Lesson 1: One Strike+ Jailed at Home

Iryou-nin – medic nin

Kawarimi – replacement obviously, all applications of the jutsu that are 'unknown to chuunin' are things Kakashi has done with it at some point, the last two applications are things I haven't seen in the series (have you noticed that when Naruto replaces someone else with something (e.g. moegi, inari) he winds up holding them?). I'm trying to make up for the loss of kage bunshin by having him use common techniques in a way other ninja cannot

Pung ryu do – a Korean variant of tai chi, designed with the idea that many of it's practitioners would be schooled in Japanese style sword arts rather than the straight blades preferred by the Chinese martial arts that utilised tai chi in their training scheme. (cause Koreans adopted Japanese sword styles and stole katanas from enemy officers earlier on in their history than the Chinese.)

Kogami no horou – using the first kanji of Konoha for the ko, rather than the child kanji (just to make this really clear), passage of the tree gods

Mokuton – wood element, I wouldn't keep it in the translations but some people might forget since it's only mentioned once so far in the anime (manga readers of course cant possibly forget how very awesome yamato is ...)

Tomo-shi – the illusion Kurenai used last chapter, literally 'friend-death' because I cant really be bothered to name it properly.

Nuke-nin – missing nin


	7. Sharp intent, dull blade

Sorry for the lateness guys, VFsnake pmed me and I was feeling really good so I replied saying 'defnitely before Friday' and within four hours my chemistry lecturer told me that I had come real close to failing the course he had me for last semester. Good mood goes byebye. I've failed a physics subject once before and I really didn't like it so the idea that I might fail a subject in my favourite science made me really depressed for a few days. But after having a cry in the bath on Thursday night I sort of got it together and decided that since I promised a chapter there would be a chapter.

So here it is.

And to all those who followed along with the 'the fourth must have been the last person to sign the toad contract before naruto' theory i laugh at you as of this week's manga. Jiraiya-sama has proven that theory wrong and i thank him greatly.

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The Fox of Mibu – Sharp Intent, Dull Blade

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Sarutobi glared at the mission requests, on the desk they were ordered in rows so that the D-rank missions were furthest from him and S-rank were closest. Each row of mission requests was divided into columns as well, on his far right were the two columns he liked the best, mission that were already accepted and had ninja assigned to them, the requests there were ready to go into mission briefings and be handed out. One column in from that, the other column the Hokage was happy to see, was the column of missions that would be declined because they violated treaties with other villages, endangered leaf shinobi for non-vital gains or, the largest group, were decoys set by enemies of the village to allow easy elimination of leaf forces. This column was also dealt with and didn't require any more attention.

The others were somewhat troublesome, next came missions that were suspected of being miss-labelled and needed investigation (C- and D-rank missions in this category were simply discarded because checking them would cost more than the mission would bring in). Then there were the unassigned missions, the old man's greatest headache, and lastly a column for missions that had been assigned to ninja who were already on missions at the time and would need to be reassigned.

Right in front of him were four requests that fit into the most irritating category of all, fortunately that particular category seemed to only occur for a few weeks every year. In front of him there were four mission sheets that, a month ago, he would have assigned right away and moved on, now the ninja who the missions were practically tailor made for were each recently assigned a gennin squad and couldn't take a mission of that level. First there was an S-rank combat mission that screamed for Kakashi and Gai, Gai was fine since his team had reached the point where they could be assigned a temporary instructor and given time off missions for training only but Kakashi's team were still too unruly and inexperienced in exactly what was expected of them now that they were out of the academy to assign him separately to them. That and Sarutobi was not sure he wanted the last Uchiha to wander the village interrupting leaf-nin with real work to do just because his instructor wasn't there.

A similar problem had been solved last year when Gai was unavailable by sending Saito in his place. Unfortunately, while the third was quite sure that a team disciplined by the swordsman would be able to deal with a week or so unobserved he was troubled because the mission in question would coincide with another S-rank that would require his personal attention along with two ANBU squads. Even if he took his chances and chose most of his escort to be roots members, thus largely disarming the main group desiring Naruto's death while he was gone, the old man was not so trusting of his own people, even thought he wished he could be, to leave Naruto in the village while both he and Saito were gone.

Then there was the third mission – one calling for a jounin to disarm S-ranked genjutsu traps and assist in the robbery of a bank in the lightning country. The mission was projected to see no combat but enemies of up to B-class could be expected if the mission failed. Of course Kurenai was the only ninja capable of both that level of genjutsu manipulation and combat and she was now a sensei as well... He would have to assign a genjutsu specialist from one of the non-combat research groups and a guard, making the mission less profitable since the clients had stipulated a penalty for using too many people and thus increasing the chance of detection.

"Heeey Hokage-sama, guess what IIII know ..."

The old leader's face betrayed none of his irritation nor his thoughts as he turned his perpetually kindly gaze on the intruding special jounin. _Argh Anko, you are responsible for quite a large portion of the repairs to public__ works I had to fill out yester__day you know ... maybe I should assign her as guard for that robbery ... she does so hate it when I give her missions below her combat rank ... _The old man shook himself out of his thoughts, he couldn't really give Anko the mission, sure she would be the perfect person in the event of combat, but sending her would also guarantee combat would become necessary.

Without revealing his momentary thoughts of punishment the wizened old man smiled at the young woman, "What is it that you know Mitarashi-kun?"

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Naruto ran through the markets, ignoring the muttered curses from almost everyone he passed. No one had confronted him openly in two years now – not since one of the loudest voices calling for his execution had been silenced by virtue of the body it inhabited being spread out rather further than was normal for a human being and, indeed, nailed in great bloody chunks to walls all over the village. The autopsy demanded by the Hokage revealed that the man, an ANBU specialist in obtaining information in was less traceable than torture... a spy if you will, had basically fallen into conveniently sized lumps of meat when some unknown enemy had removed the fifth of his eight celestial gates.

Not many could claim a feat like that – of all the people whose abilities Naruto was familiar with only Hyuuga Hiashi-sama might be able to believably claim to even know where any one of the gates actually were. While the clan leader might respect the blonde as a suitably skilled gennin to function as his heir's contemporary, Naruto rather doubted that respect would go so far as to prompt him to kill a fellow leaf over a few derogatory comments about the jinchuuriki in public places. Actually, the very idea that the icily composed Hyuuga might kill in so violent a manner over _anything_ was fairly foreign in it's own right.

Yet that was who the council placed on trial. Apparently there were suggestions that the ANBU had had a connection with a diplomatic party from Kumo and an 'incident' nine years ago now, although seven at the time. That rather clinched it for Naruto, there was _nothing_ that could possibly get Hinata's father so heated up _and_ keep him that way for over seven years, Saito-shisho hadn't even been a leaf-nin back then.

There was also talk that the nine tails had reached some sort of limit and couldn't pretend to be human anymore without spilling a little blood to quench it's thirst, what better target than one of those who shouted the truth about it most loudly and made it so much harder to fool the people of the village? Translating that from the language of 'the Uzumaki child is a demon and must die' to his own language of 'Naruto is stopping the nine tails from running over and eating you, he's stopped expecting respect or even courtesy, but if you could please stop throwing things ...' he came to an idea that frightened him. In the language of reason that deranged rant came out as 'the stress of ignoring you fools and holding back the Kyuubi has gotten too much and the beast managed to wrest control for a while'. That bothered Naruto a lot – since he had no memory of attacking the ANBU it meant that if the 'the demon did it' crew were right then he would have no memories of what happened if the nine tails took control. Understandably upsetting.

Truth aside the tales were originally spread to make the fallen ANBU look the part of a martyr and stir up more hatred aimed at Konoha's punching bag. For the first few weeks Naruto had been right on edge, then a voice at the back of one of the rallies had asked if their cruelty to the boy might shorten the demon's fuse again. Once the thought sunk in everyone sort of agreed that it was a real tragedy about what happened to that ANBU and someone should really execute the demon for it ... but none of them wanted the glory enough to risk becoming the other, other white meat in order to have a go.

While a hole in Konoha's law – stating that any business run from a building officially registered as a private home could ban any patron without penalty under discrimination laws – meant he still couldn't shop at ninety percent of the shops in the village he could walk through the market like any normal citizen. Actually he could walk through the throngs rather more easily than most other citizens since the press usually pulled back so as not to come too close to so violent a butcher.

Naruto hid a chuckle as he watched the villagers simultaneously aid their hated enemy and handicap their beloved Uchiha. On his way to meet his team and set off for his first real mission he had been spotted by the hot headed avenger and the boy with the village's worst bed head began to follow, obviously the genius wanted to test his improvement now that he had been training under a jounin. Naruto decided that he didn't want the delay so the market was the best idea of all. On entering the busy square Naruto was forced to slow to a brisk walk so that the villagers would have a chance to spot him and flee in mild terror. Sasuke on the other hand was thoroughly adored by the populace and soon found himself unable to move for all the men wanting to shake his hand, women suggesting that he might like to meet their daughters and merchants chattering madly about the weather and almost nothing in the hope that he might respond and give then a chance to work the phrase 'I was talking to the young Uchiha the other day ...' into conversation at their next business dinner.

Naruto was most of the way across the square when Sasuke finally got angry enough to change the rules, the Uchiha had finally worked his way close enough to a building to vault off a cart and onto it's roof. With the pursuing unit having realised his error Naruto's rather amusing ploy came to an end so the blonde abandoned his path and dodged into an alley. With Sasuke watching from roof height Naruto couldn't really just leap onto the rooftops and run without being spotted and the alley had only one exit that lead away from the market so the Uchiha would have no real problem spotting him if he went that way. Fortunately Naruto was growing quite accustomed to the idea that a ninja who specialised like he did could gain an advantage in any situation by making use of his specialty.

Running in a low crouch Naruto ran back into the market square along the bottom side of a second story overhang provided for his benefit by a particularly wealthy merchant who liked to look down on his neighbours in a rather literal sense. At the end of the house Naruto stopped to think, where he was he would be completely invisible to anyone on the rooftops, especially since Sasuke didn't seem to know about the possibilities of the wall walking exercise, but the rich merchant had seen fit to only extend one side of his second story over the marketplace so if he continued on his way then the Uchiha would probably spot him and force yet another pointless duel. Realistically Naruto thought that just giving the damn fool his satisfaction and moving on once he was a gibbering ball of pain in some ditch would probably be quicker but the thought of another punishment for lack of self control along with the teamwork problems it would cause between him and Ino on their very first mission stopped him. He would have to move soon if he didn't want some idiot on the ground to look up and attract attention to him but he couldn't really time it so that Sasuke wouldn't be looking without exposing some part of himself to scrutiny.

Actually there was one way, but it relied fairly heavily on luck, on the other hand if luck wasn't with him the only thing he would lose was the time it took to try. Lacing his fingers together in a few seals Naruto tried the jutsu he had made almost no progress toward perfecting despite having practiced it daily since he learned it two months ago the night he graduated from the academy. _Zenku kosu._

Naruto bit back a curse, although he was two stories up and thus there was less chance of having a nice close look at some soil he had fallen victim to the other sort of bad luck available to him in this situation. Currently the blonde had a nice view of the inside of the room on the other side of the wall he stood on, not bothering to look too closely Naruto cancelled the jutsu and tried again. Over the months since becoming a gennin Naruto had placed a pair on restrictions on himself in order to minimise the problems associated randomness, firstly he restricted his distance to five metres so that the ratio of useful possible results to useless stayed good and secondly he restricted himself to three attempts because he had once wasted a whole afternoon on repeated attempts bought on thoughts of 'sure I could walk away ... but what if that one more try is exactly the one that will get me what I want'. That was his first attempt.

Forming seals once again Naruto tried to make the jutsu go in the right direction by sheer force of will. Whether he succeeded or it was purely coincidence he found himself looking down into the crowd of the market. That was perfect, once the point was set and his 'eyes' were anchored he could turn and look around the full three-sixty degrees. To his left he could see the balcony he knew his body to be hiding under so he turned to face the building he had seen the Uchiha climb. Naruto cursed his luck, the moody gennin had dropped down to a first floor balcony a few buildings over and spotted him while he was trying to make the stupid jutsu work ... _damn, why couldn't the old man have given me a jutsu that works?_

Without looking back Naruto dashed toward the corner and into an alley, simply going full speed rather than bothering to play this game any longer. Behind him Sasuke's surprised gasp at Naruto suddenly taking off without ever having looked back to spot him went unnoticed as he pushed on into a less crowded section of town and continued to dash along perpendicular to the ground on his way to the designated meeting point.

Because he ran along the outside of buildings and the pursuing Uchiha cut across the top of them Naruto found himself quickly overtaken and attacked. But the Uchiha obviously lived up to Naruto's prior assumption that he couldn't perform the wall walking exercise and was forced to alternate between dropping axe kicks and leaping attacks up and down the walls. The fact that Sasuke couldn't alter the attacks once he began them and he had to fall or jump a whole floor of the building before his blows got to Naruto combined with Naruto's uncanny ability to treat walls like the floor to make every one of the incoming blows sail past aimlessly.

Eventually the raging Uchiha and the placid blonde came to the edge of the village and continued outside the walls. Sasuke broke into a smile, there were open fields here, no buildings for the annoying bastard Uzumaki to run on now. Naruto also smiled, it had rained fairly heavily the night before and many farmers had just ploughed their fields in preparation to sow the winter crops, conditions were just perfect.

Dropping down the wall and slowing his fall slightly by sticking to it weakly with chakra Naruto reached just the right height on the concrete barrier and pushed off, vaulting far out into the fields and landing facing back at the wall. He turned back to face his challenger and waited.

He saw Sasuke drop down the wall in a rather less controlled manner than he had.

He saw Sasuke kick off and come sailing towards him.

He saw Sasuke whip out a kunai hand hold it reversed for a big stab on landing.

He saw Sasuke hit the freshly ploughed and watered soil.

He saw Sasuke's look of superiority turn to horrified rage as the ground didn't support him and he sank to his armpits in thick mud.

Chuckling lightly to himself Naruto decided to leave Sasuke to do his thing uninterrupted and go meet up with his teammates.

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Ino shifted idly from foot to foot, she knew Shino considered arriving too early to be almost as rude as arriving late – it is true that in some cases that turning up half an hour early can inconvenience others even more than arriving half an hour late – and would arrive at the meeting point almost exactly five minutes before Saito-sensei's designated time. Naruto would likewise arrive only shortly before their time of departure from their home village. She herself wasn't normally prone to being unfashionably early to team meetings but today was different, she was feeling the rush and excitement of her first mission and was more than a little nervous to boot. Damn her teammates for not betraying any anxiety ever.

Saito-sensei was already there, he stood a few metres off talking to the gate guard and filling out forms so that the team would be able to leave the village right on their planned departure time. Actually Ino thought her jounin-sensei looked quite hot today … she also couldn't believe she had just thought that. He did though, they each had instructions to dress as civilians while actually travelling. They would of course be back in their combat gear once the mission started but currently their sensei wore blue youfuku, a blue jacket with a stand up collar and matching pants, even the ninja style footwear was gone and he wore boots in their place. Ino couldn't help but feel the rather attractive aura of maturity from him, he looked quite sophisticated and somehow the cigarette between his the fingers of one white gloved hand added to the effect rather than annoying her like it normally did. Although she rather thought that might change once she was close enough to smell the smoke.

Her own outfit consisted of an ankle length one piece dress with the bodice in a sky blue and the skirt portion in a slightly darker shade with little white sandals and cinched at the waist with a sash of navy silk that was actually her forehead protector with the metal plate removed.

Naruto came jogging up at about six minutes before departure time with a huge smile on his face, like a cat with a stomach full of canary. He was pressed a little like Saito, with a decent looking pair of black pants and a jacket in the same style as his master. Naruto wore his jacket open revealing a somewhat disordered suit shirt with the top two buttons undone. Ino was a little surprised to see his hair tied back in a short tail at the back of his head, she was sure his hair wasn't long enough for that. The whole look came together well for him and she rather thought that anyone observing him might assume that he was Saito's son, even with the hair and eye differences, certainly if they said Naruto got his hair and eyes from his mother those would be the only things that didn't mark him as a descendant of their sensei. Ino caught the thought that at least she wouldn't be quite so ashamed when the inevitable happened and some stranger mistook them for siblings because of their obvious shared traits she might not be so bothered by it and stepped on it heavily though.

"Hehe, you should have a talk to Kakashi about what he's been teaching his students master – they aren't even up to wall walking yet."

Ino's eyes narrowed in comprehension, "What did you do to Sasuke?" she managed to make it a threatening sound but her heart wasn't in it, why did she have to defend her idol from her buffoon of a teammate? She had promised loudly, along with every other girl, that her love for Sasuke was stronger than anything and that it would live through anything, but having said that she found that she was succumbing to the irritation she felt at his routine humiliations at Naruto's hands.

"_I_ didn't do anything, Sasuke made a fool of himself all on his own today," Naruto's tone started defensive but suddenly became ironic and rather mocking, "Soon he'll be good enough that he could make himself look like an idiot without me even being there to supervise."

"Perhaps you should tell the tale from the beginning." Saito-sensei's tone was quiet and spoke of punishment for fighting with his allies.

It did little to strip the mirth from Naruto's voice however, "Well the Uchiha decided to chase me, mainly because I decided that I'd rather loose him in the crowd than stick around for another one of his stupid challenges on the day of my first mission. Well it turns out that everyone's favourite moron cant wall walk so he was stuck running after me and screaming obscenities when I decided that the fastest track here was along the side of a building." Ino growled at him, but then she wondered if it was worth it. After all nothing she did would make him have mercy on the Uchiha when it was Sasuke who always instigated the confrontations. After so long she also found that it hard to be properly angry over this … truly the whole affair bored her. She actually had to conceal a smile at the grin on Naruto's face as he continued his tale, "But that didn't stop our determined hero! He kept on my tail for a full five minutes, never once giving in to the logic that a full five minutes without landing a blow or tiring the enemy should call for a retreat. The when I ran out of building to run on he thought he had me, he came in for the kill. In terror of the mighty Uchiha I leapt over the village walls, remembering the courtesy to wave at the guards on duty and turn so that they could see my hitai-ate of course. With the potent Uchiha hot on my heels I fled into a fresh ploughed field just outside the walls as I scrambled madly to freedom across the surface of the deep mud I found out that Kakashi's team haven't learned water walking either."

Ino suddenly had to raise her hands to her face and press her lips tightly together in order to suppress a laugh. Saito-sensei didn't bother to hide his chuckle or even his mild relief that he would not have to once again discipline his 'son' for fighting with a fellow leaf. Next to Saito the jounin commanding the two chuunin squads on the current six hour shift at the village walls collapsed off the bench he was sitting on with delighted mirth. Gekkou Hayate had been an old rival of Saito-sensei's ever since the Shinmei ryu dojo opened in Konoha, he had a cough that was more of a habit than evidence of any sort of medical problem but it none the less took over his laughing after a few moments.

"Yeah!" Naruto's excited exclamation brought attention back to him for a moment and he pointed right at the fallen jounin, "that's what the chuunin on the wall did too!"

Calming down and moving away form the subject of the Uchiha they chatted amiably for only a few minutes before Shino arrived. The Aburame was almost unrecognisable, without his hitai-ate to hold his hair back he was forced to comb it rather more neatly than usual and he had forgone his usual high collared jacket in favour of a plain white shirt. On his face and neck, as well as all up his arms there were a number of scratches and bruises a few of the worst looking sections were covered by large square band-aids, one on his cheek, another on his neck and several on each arm. Ino found herself reaching out a hand and the words 'what happened?' forming on her lips before she realised it. Her worry for her teammate was soon blotted out by embarrassment when she realised that the bandages were to hide the things that had been exposed by the removal of his jacket. After a moment Shino's odd stare reminded her that she still had one hand slightly raised and her mouth open so she lowered and closed then respectively.

"Very well," Saito began by tossing a scroll with a sealing array on it to each of his pupils, "seal your combat gear in these, along with most of your ninja weapons and gear. Keep only a few small weapons on your person at any time, remember that we are civilians until we reach our destination. The scroll stays with you at all times, it definitely doesn't get put in your back packs, only civilian items are to be carried in your backpacks and you are to basically live out of them like a real civilian. There is enough resemblance between us that I could pass us off as a parent twins and a cousin travelling together but, frankly, a group of one adult and three kids all of the same age screams 'jounin-sensei with a team of gennin' so loudly that even real civilians would be suspicious of us. Shino and I will travel through the woods as shinobi and rejoin the road a few kilometres outside the destination city, then we'll scout a bit for any information on the target until lunch time.

"Naruto and Ino will be travelling as twins on their way to visit an aunt in earth country with gifts from their mother," Saito threw a pair of wrapped boxes to Ino and she placed them carefully in her pack, "you two will travel by the normal road and thus not enter the town until about noon. Since you will be entering town later than us and will be a lot less conspicuous than we will you two will be paying attention for anyone who might be paying a little too much attention to Shino and I.

"Once you are sure we're clear signal us and we will set off for the next town down the road, you two follow after eating lunch. In the second town Shino and I will act as retainers to a pair of travelling rich kids, running ahead to reserve your inn for the night and then we'll spend the afternoon at a few lower class gathering spots complaining about you and gathering any more info we might. You two enter the second village go to the inn and eat dinner at the inn's restaurant, make sure to hang around socialising with your fellow guests and asking about the right sort of rumours.

"We do that everyday for a week and we will reach the town of or client. I don't expect us to find out much the first to days but after that we should start hearing more rumours about the situation in each new town. It might not be a bad idea to talk to any travellers you happen to cross paths with, but remember that you two have to be beyond suspicion so you can scout for people watching us and you shouldn't let any of the hearsay you're likely to find on the road disrupt our timetable too greatly. Questions?"

All three looked bothered by this plan but Ino spoke up first, "Why not just run to the client's village normally and enter as civilians? And why do we need to collect extra information? The village doesn't normally take missions if the client doesn't provide sufficient information."

"We would do just that if we were heading to most villages and towns but this particular village is in the earth country and hidden stone is the only major village not to have a current non-aggression pact with Konoha … even if they respect the traditions of the chuunin exams any meeting with an Iwa-nin outside that time will likely end in combat. As for the information thing, well … frankly there is a fairly large difference between 'sufficient data to accept the mission' and all 'the data required to complete the mission' and that difference gets bigger as the missions go up in rank. Any more?"

No one responded so Saito moved on to the briefing proper, "Ok our client is a gemstone fabricator …"

"Wha? You mean he _makes_ gems?" Naruto sounded completely lost already.

"Yes, most gems are only really silicon oxides with a few minor impurities. A ruby is not that different from a pane of glass, except that it contains several important traces of impurities and it's component atoms are put together in different shapes," Naruto just decided to shut up since everything his master had just said had gone over his head. Little did he know that the idea had shocked Saito just as much when he had heard it for the first time, "The thing about artificial gems is that they are made things and have much less innate chakra than naturally occurring stones so they aren't useful for making chakra based weapons, rich civilians don't buy them in jewellery because of the aesthetics of a 'real' gemstone aren't satisfied by something that was mixed up in a chemist's lab. But they do have important uses – if you needed a diamond tip for a tool purely because it needed to be hard and that would never be required to channel chakra would you want to save about half the price or would you choose not to because the cheaper option was really just charcoal that had been fused into diamond under high pressure over a few hours in a workshop rather than some other form of raw carbon that had been fused into diamond under high pressure over a few million years?

"So the gem manufacturer and the mines of the earth country realised that they were both selling to different markets and that they could live side by side. Then our client discovered a way to make rubies and amethysts that reacted to chakra just like the real thing, he is in the process of altering the method and he is fairly confident that he can make it work for other types too. The profit possibilities among the hidden villages is huge, especially since many already complain about having to buy such expensive stones just to grind them up for the ink used by sealing masters.

"Even though our client's creations cant be used for longer term applications such as weapons like the raijin sword of our own second Hokage he will be taking the largest portion of their business, gems for sealing ink, right out from under the mining groups' noses. That's where we come in, you see our client isn't foolish enough to think that those currently on top of the industry will simply say 'oh well' and stand aside for the new order to take their place. He is holding back on announcing his discovery until after we extract him from the earth country and help him relocate to a nation without any major mining companies to send assassins his way.

"This mission, despite it's low rank and probability of almost no combat, is quite important to Konoha. The fee the client is paying us is a ten year contract stating that he will only sell to us, _our_ pay is coming from the village council who rather like the idea of being the only village able to make sealing ink at about half the current price for the next decade. This mission is more dangerous than what a gennin team would get as their first mission … actually this mission is of higher importance to the village than would normally be entrusted to a chuunin. But I am considered enough of a force to keep you safe so if we encounter bandits you can fight them but any other enemies I am to fight alone. You may step back and think of it as me giving a demonstration.

"That's everything, set out."

All three gennin nodded and began walking, Shino and Saito taking to the trees almost instantly while Naruto and Ino began to walk at a suitably civilian pace along the road side by side.

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Explaining-ness –

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Zenku kosu – 'filter allspace', the jutsu Sarutobi gave Naruto as a reward for reporting Mizuki's plans in chapter 4, a spying jutsu requiring a safe place to perform and a lot of luck. The jutsu simply throws the user's awareness a random distance from the starting point in a random direction. At the expense of no longer being able to hear or see what happens within the range of their normal senses the user becomes able to see and hear as though s/he were standing where her awareness winds up. Apart from the obvious problems of having no idea what is happening back with her body the user also needs to contend with the fact that while the _maximum _distance is determined by the chakra spent her placement is random and that frankly one doesn't hear or see much when one's ears or eyes are located in a tree, or a wall ... or the ground. The largest problem as one increases the distance is that fully half the sphere of possible view points is underground and the further one has to push the jutsu to make the desired distance the further away the user may end up in the event of bad luck. Randomness only applies to the unperfected version of the jutsu and as a user becomes more skilful she can aim the jutsu to within an increasingly small angle of her desired direction. As you may have seen Naruto is so skilled with this jutsu he can still manage to get it in exactly the opposite direction to his aim.

Youfuku – western clothes :b

Sharp Intent, Dull Blade – describes Sasuke down to the ground don't you think?


	8. Can you be my enemy?

I'm kinda dissatisfied with this chapter, i intended to have it out much earlier and i intended to get at least a significant distance into the fight scene but i kept putting of the fight scene because i didnt know how to start it. and please dont kill me for what i've done to naruto and ino - that came up because i had an idea (that had already been contradicted by the cannon) about who Naruto's real father could be, being an illegitimate child myself i know how a father can go to great lengths to hide your existence from his real wife. the idea of Inoshi (and thus his allies Shikato and Choumaru) supporting naruto from the shadows while trying not to let his wife know about his indiscretion on, say, the night of his bachelor party, is fairly plausible to me

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The fox of Mibu – Can you be my enemy?

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Hajime Saito stood waiting; he was clad in a blue jumpsuit and cap bearing the insignia of a small time shipping firm that made its money moving the specialist equipment that all the little businesses that popped up around the gem mines needed to provide their various services. Behind him Shino pushed a large crate on a trolley, the Aburame wore the lighter coloured overalls of a junior employee of the same company.

The whole team was in town two days early because their client hadn't been as aware of his own situation as Sarutobi-sama was. Where the client claimed his regular hired guards would be sufficient protection until the move had actually begun, the hidden leaf had data indicating that one of the local mining groups had used missing nin for the assassination of rivals in the past. There were even in depth reports on those missing nins he was known to have given work in the past, three of those were in the section of the bingo book only the ANBU ever got to see.

So, in keeping with the deception planned in the mission brief, Saito decided to slip by and do a small unannounced inspection of their client's home defences. The security on the front side of the house was easy enough to assess from the street outside and the two had walked the entire perimeter of the building to reach the service entrance. By and large Saito was satisfied that should trouble arise here they could hold it off for long enough for his squad to aid them from their hotel at the end of the street. While it was not good that two strangers with a large box of unknown content could simply walk into the yard of the residence and do a lap of the house to reach the service doors it couldn't be helped without making a change to the normal security arrangements so big their enemies couldn't help but notice it. The problem was mitigated by the fact that their client had a reputation for paranoid security obsession and the normal, day to day, security included an arrangement whereby neither of them had been out of the sight of at least two guards since entering.

Saito had knocked a few minutes ago and a door boy had told him that a steward would be down to deal with their business shortly. They stood re-checking a thousand details that they had already catalogued half a dozen times during the wait so far. While his sensei checked and rechecked the quality of the locks and the barring on the windows over again Shino was busy trying to absorb every ounce of data he could manage in the sure knowledge that he would be tested on it later. All they needed now was for the steward to come out and realise that the crate on Shino's trolley was marked for delivery to a lot in the next street that backed on to this one so that they could apologise for any inconvenience caused by their 'mistake' and be on their way.

Idly Shino allowed a moment's distraction to wonder how Naruto and Ino were getting on with their reconnaissance.

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"Bai-kun, please sit properly, we are presenting ourselves to a potential client." Ino sat primly, sipping European tea daintily and arching a single delicate eyebrow at her 'brother'.

"Yes, O-nee-sama," Naruto straightened in his chair and faced forward. The two had perfected their twin act over the last week and had even developed whole new personalities they could call on if they needed to use it as cover in future.

Even ninja tended to be a little freaked out by twins. Even though properly genetically identical twins of opposite genders is technically impossible there were cases where a brother and sister where so alike it didn't really matter, they were, for all intents and purposes identical. Ino and Naruto had become just such a pair.

Naruto clenched the muscles by his eyes and never fully closed his jaw so that his cheekbones seemed higher and his features finer. Ino tightened her jaw and relaxed her upper lip to dull the natural sharpness of the Yamanaka nose and chin. The rest was done by make up. Not a breath of chakra gave their transformations away and yet the two were like a pair of mirrors facing one another, as exactly alike to one another as they were unlike their everyday faces.

Any decent shinobi could anticipate the actions of another to some extent, even from the first meeting, but as a swordsman their sensei insisted that failing to read an opponent's intent for even an instant was the recipe for a sudden death. The three of them shared an intense bond, at several points during training one would respond to a call from one of the others before they had realised that the other was going to say something, Naruto was still a little shaken by the fact that Shino had, just a fortnight ago, snapped at him saying something like 'Shut up, we're working on it' just as Naruto had opened his mouth to ask where the hell his support was. Team six lacked a great deal in several areas of ninja life but even their biggest weaknesses were compensated to gennin level competence by their symbiotic understanding of each other.

After a week of practice specifically aimed at enhancing that bond Naruto and Ino could synchronise their actions to a disturbingly fine degree. On particularly cruel game they had developed was for them to swap personalities every few minutes, right now Naruto was the slightly untidier and submissive younger sibling and Ino was the commanding and very proper older. In a few minutes she would begin to fidget, at the same time Naruto would straighten up and his expression would become more neutral. Then he would change from Bai-kun to Bai-onii-sama and she would go from Miku-onee-sama to Mi-chan, then after a few more minutes Miku's squirming would become too much for her older brother to tolerate and he would reprimand her. Then they would slowly begin to swap back, the whole process took about seven minutes per change when they were alone but would slowly speed up to every few sentences once the conversation got under way. The whole process was immensely distracting for outsiders as they had found while testing their imperfect version of travellers they met on the road.

The door knob began to turn and Bai stood up, brushing himself off and straightening his clothes in preparation before turning to greet his client. All in a rush Miku put down her teacup and stood as well. Their client shook their hands – a very poor habit when meeting someone for the first time as far as security went, even if it was considered polite – before motioning them to sit.

Somewhere under the surface of Bai's mind Naruto was sniggering madly, in thirty seconds this merchant had exposed himself to a thousand different deaths should either of the shinobi choose to make it so, all for the sake of appearances. He had entered the room ahead of his two bodyguards, deliberately taking the dominant position among the group. _Deliberately blocking the doorway so his guards couldn't leap to his defence if his guests decided to greet him with a kunai_

He was ostentatious enough to be giving 'urgent' orders to a servant, orders doubtless saved just so that he could give them at that moment, just when he was in the doorway, making sure they knew that he was a very busy and important man and that they should feel damn privileged to meet him in person at all. _Ostentatious enough to turn his back on potential assassins right as he obscured them from his guards view._

He shook their hands in the manner of one doing them a personal favour, he made them pour their own tea to show their place in the scheme of things right before he had a servant pour him tea from the very same pot and he chatted to several of the guards, taking their minds away from duty. All in all this was too much for Naruto, no one could have made it so long and so successfully in the cutthroat world of international business, especially when one wasn't averse to using missing nins to off the competition, by being so careless. The fact that not one bodyguard batted an eye at his terrible security policy tore it for the blonde boy.

There was obviously a reason this man felt confident enough to leave so many openings, he was testing them and he was fairly sure that whatever other security he had in place would stop them from succeeding in whatever they might try. As they sat Bai-nii-sama became Bai-kun once more and he used his uncomfortable fidgeting to sneak a glance at his sister. It seemed clear to him that she felt the same thing that he did, although if asked he would be unable to tell you how he knew since nothing was betrayed by her face. He began to tug at his collar.

"Stop that Bai-kun." Bai was given a moment's pause as his own voice came to him in reprimand.

His analysis of his sister's mood seemed to be right on the money since she was clearly bothered to talk to him in his own voice this early in the piece. They had planned to only resort to that a short while before the meeting ended, the final push against their 'client's nerves but Miku was clearly hoping to speed things up and might even delve into some other tactics they had earlier decided not to risk just yet to find out just what was wrong with the situation. In keeping up the ruse Bai had no choice but to follow her lead. Not that he was averse to risk, he rather like the idea.

In a voice that was clearly his sister's Bai answered, "Yes, o-nee-sama."

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"… after we 'killed' all of his guards with our chalk daggers he looked really angry, but more about the fact that he couldn't really turn us down as easily without revealing that he had other guards and was just making a show of it than because of the attack. In the end he said he would have to talk it over with his security and finance advisors."

Naruto stopped and gestured for Ino to continue in his place, he had missed what she had sensed so it was not his place to report it. "As soon as we entered the room we noticed someone concealing a chuunin level chakra in the next room, it wasn't that well hidden so we think it was probably a lower rank chuunin or a gennin with a large capacity, it could also be a jounin specialising in a non-chakra related discipline. The lack of control, self-control not chakra-control, fairly well counts the last option out though."

While Ino struggled to phrase her next sentence to convey the information without missing anything her sensei displayed his long experience as a leader by prompting her with the right questions, "Self-control?"

Distracted from the mounting of facts she had stored away Ino began to talk her way through the encounter once more, "Yeah, when Naruto began the attack that presence nearly burst into the room to fight us. I know Naruto already mentioned that, but because he was the one initiating our assault he missed the other chakra. I decided to use some mind chakra to knock my guard out so I was paying more attention to chakra moulding than he was too, when the chuunin one spiked to charge in and save the merchant another chakra flared for a second and held it back. Even while restraining the chuunin level one I couldn't sense the other chakra at anything more than civilian level, but it was obviously the chuunin one's superior or commander because it realised that we were using chalk to make a point and stopped it's subordinate from blowing their cover.

"The whole rest of the time until we left I never sensed that chakra again, that bothers me since once I know that they are hiding nearby I can pick out a chuunin from an empty room no problem. But that was the room our 'client' went into to discuss hiring us with his accountant and head of security." Ino finished up her part of the report and handed finishing up over to Naruto.

"Well, after that he told us to stay in town for a few days while they reviewed their resources and decided if they could afford us. I responded by telling him that we already had three interested parties and if he wanted us he would have to win a bidding war. With that excuse in hand he begged off, saying that he couldn't afford to outbid too many others. The conclusion is that the enemy has two ninja on his payroll. Unfortunately we were unable to get anything but the foggiest insight into their abilities."

Ignoring the tone of Naruto's voice, which spoke volumes about how disappointed he was in his performance, Saito dismissed his team, "Ok, eat and sleep. Tomorrow you will be training outside town to shake off any remnants of your assumed personalities and bring yourselves back to the correct mental state. The day after we will meet our client and begin the move."

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Not for the first time that day Naruto groaned, after a day spent getting out of character and another spent sealing incomprehensible machines for transport Saito-shisho and their client had hammered out the last details of their strategy.

Seibo-san, their client, had arranged for one of his materials wholesalers to have a 'sudden shortage' of one of the main components of his processes a week prior. Under this guise he was forced to give all his workers an extended period of paid leave while he went out and secured a new source. What this meant was that everyone bar him was gone from his workshops when the ninjas arrived and sealed every last piece of gear into the scrolls Hokage-sama had provided at the specific request of the mission parameters. They also sealed up the equipment for the new process that had been developed away from the prying eyes other groups had planted in his workforce and most of the furniture in his house.

The whole group was travelling in disguise, their client was 'visiting my brother who makes semi conductive silicon for electronics to see if he can put me in touch with a better supplier' when they were asked by the gate guards their reason for moving such a large procession out of the city gates. With no work being done and all three of the house servants moving to Konoha with him there would be no one to notice the fact that both his residence and his place of business were stripped bare until long after they were in the fire country. He rather cynically predicted that he would be noticed missing when the first paycheques failed to make it to his, by then former, employees. With any luck.

While Seibo-san was amazingly young for the achievements of his lifetime, he was quite reclusive and uninterested in the rest of the world, taking no wife and having no children, not even illegitimate ones by the more … casual women of the township. Childless though he was his siblings, of which he was the youngest, seemed to be trying to rule the world by weight of numbers. Many nieces and nephews visited him each year, learning what the could of his trade in the sure knowledge that they each had too many siblings of their own to entertain any but the most distant hope to inherit a share of their own parent's business. So many came, in fact, that the rumours of impotence – which had accumulated about any twenty-five year old, unwed and childless in a community where having children to pass on one's legacy to was the most fundamental of all social graces – were soon lost among the jests that having so many 'children' before having any of his own had put him off.

Either way, right after clearing their assumed sibling relationship from their minds Naruto and Ino were told to take it back up again and pose as Seibo-san's niece and nephew. Having just put the persona away Naruto was having trouble not tackling Ino to the ground and throttling her. Then again that could be due to the sewing. The two were riding the front coach in a position suiting guests but – while their 'uncle' sat inside, mopping his brow and avoiding the sun – for the purposes of fulfilling their duties as guards they had loudly announced that their client was 'a stuffy old man' and gone to sit on the carriage roof and enjoy the sunlight. How that had lead to him having to sew as a sibling bonding exercise Naruto still wasn't quite sure.

Shino had surprised everyone by arriving shirtless – although with many bandages covering his more unusual openings, and of course with his trademark shades in place – to work for Seibo-san as a porter, unloading whatever they were going to be needing from the carts every night when they stopped in towns, but mostly he pretended to be asleep on the bench or the floor of the second, somewhat shabbier, carriage Seibo-san had arranged for his servants. Sleeping had turned out to be a good ruse, not only was he able to close his eyes and block out distractions from his duty of keeping an eye out for suspicious chakra presences but he was also not interrupted by his fellow passengers, all three were family and had served Seibo-san for five years since he first started his business in earth country, hoping for a chat with the new kid.

Saito-sensei, clad once more in his blue police uniform, rode patrols, talking in turn to the mercenary at the front of the procession and the one bringing up the rear before riding next to the client's carriage for a while and then starting over. Yesterday Seibo-san had gone into a local bar that was known as a gathering place for hired swords between work and selected three men at 'random'. Saito had of course been one, the other two really were chosen at random. Before anyone could gather the wits to questing the wisdom of selecting bodyguards at random Seibo had continued by stating that the wage would be fairly standard and they should not expect combat as they were to be travelling along paved highways patrolled by the armies of the various daimyos of the lands they would be passing through and that they were really nothing more than a formality to placate his guests. Thinking of a few weeks non combat duty for standard payment the two had agreed and rode front and back, looking as impressive as they could be bothered – which didn't impress Naruto or Ino at all – and chatting with Saito for a few minutes at a time whenever he was close about women, sake and old battles.

Their client had initially resisted the idea of Saito riding a horse, their client's intelligence surprised the leaves and he seemed well aware of the fact that very few ninja could impersonate a samurai, even a ronin, in the saddle. The problem stemmed from the fact that, rather than being bad riders, ninja were just as good as samurai, but – in the same manner that an arrow could kill as easily as a kunai – even though their skills were about the same level one couldn't mistake one for the other by any stretch of the imagination.

Samurai who rode looked like they had been born cavalry, swaying in the saddle with the horses motion and talking to it quietly, moving as though it was tier own feet touching the ground. Ninja rode like it was their own feet touching the ground as well, that's why certain subtle differences between shinobi and samurai that could be hidden on foot were unmistakeable on horseback. Samurai walked like swordsmen, on the balls of their feet so they could change direction instantly, constantly shifting stance subtly to perform any task at their optimum. Ninja also walked on the balls of their feet – because the phrase 'to be caught flat footed', while meaning to be taken by surprise, had it's origins in the fact that someone standing with their feet flat on the ground reacted ever so slightly slower than one with their weight on the balls of the feet – but when a shinobi moved they did so without the bobbing of the torso that was characteristic of any creature that moved about on legs, maintaining a stable viewpoint to spot incoming surprises. Seeing a man on a horse move at full gallop with his torso remaining steady was a dead giveaway, and shinobi completely failed to hide it.

But Saito had given a demonstration of his skills and even Naruto had been shocked to see just how much like a true samurai his master looked in the saddle. It was almost as though they were watching a samurai and not a ninja at all.

As Naruto watched his master in puzzlement for the umpteenth time that day he suddenly cursed. He'd pricked his finger again. Damn stupid sewing.

Ino's eyes narrowed, "Bai-kun! Watch your language, there is a lady present."

Naruto's eyes widened in mock innocence and he leant over to look at the man they were passing. He was on foot leading a pack mule along slowly, "No, onee-sama he's definitely a man."

Ino's eyes blazed with fury, "_I_ am a lady, Bai-kun."

Naruto did his best not to burst into fits of laughter as he corrected her ever so patiently, "_No_, o-nee-sama, you can't be a lady, you're _o-nee-sama_."

The female blond growled in fury and pounded her brother over the head with her sewing box before dropping onto the step at the rear of the carriage and leaning up to the rear window, "Uncle, I am going to ride in the servants' carriage until Bai apologises." Before dropping to the road and moving away in a rather melodramatic huff.

Seibo-san was also a decent actor and Naruto thought it was a shame that he hadn't been born in a hidden village – called up to the jinchuuriki in a long suffering voice, "Bai, stop making your sister yell at me, it's too hot for this."

The man leading the mule laughed a hearty laugh before meeting Naruto's bright blues orbs with his own dull brown, finally allowing the blond a glimpse of the face under the wide brim of his hat. He was a good deal younger than Naruto had originally thought, only perhaps a year or two older than the blond himself. When he spoke he sounded happy, as though nothing could amuse him more than the scene before him, "It is good to see that your freakish attitude last time we met was all an act, Bai-kun. I feel better knowing that you and your sister are real people after all."

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"…_and_ he _agreed_ to sew in the first place. _Now_ he's getting all fidgety because he isn't suddenly a master tailor on the first day. Do you know what he _said_ to me?"

On the bench next to her the maid, a civilian girl her own age, sat and listened patiently as Miku explained just what was wrong with her brother. Opposite them on the carriage's other bench sat the maid's mother, a woman in her mid thirties who served Seibo-san's household as a chef, she was trying, albeit not very hard, to conceal a nostalgic smile as she watch the young pair bemoan the existence of little brothers and males in general.

"You do realise that I can hear you don't you Serika?" came a voice from the front of the carriage following a particularly acidic comment on the subject of siblings, the boy driving was Seirika's, the maid's, older brother. The three were the only servants Seibo-san would not be informing of their severance once they reached the fire country.

Unnoticed to everyone in the carriage a piece of paper fell out of the pocket of the young blonde and rolled away under the bench. Well, unnoticed to everyone except the porter, who was drowsing on the floor at the back of the carriage so he didn't take up a bench, with an air of mild disinterest he picked it up and examined it. _The man with the mule is the chakra we sensed at that miner's place. Watch him._

"Excuse me miss, you dropped this."

Miku took the slip of paper with a perplexed look and read it, "Oh, it's the receipt for out sewing things," the young lady informed the world at large before continuing in the tones quite familiar with having to keep infatuated males of lesser social status at bay, even from such a young age, "well, thank you."

She felt that she shouldn't burden the rest of the women with the fact that there was now writing over the top of her previous day's purchases, _I will remember him__. Sensei pointed out another presence moving parallel to our course. it is very well hidden and I __sometimes loose track of it. It is matching our speed at about forty five degrees to the front carriage, just past the __tree line_

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Naruto smiled blithely into the face of his enemy. Bai was long gone, the 'twins' having long since decided that they would drop all pretences as soon as there was a chance of serious combat since, frankly, they would get in the way. Even if they had to go back into disguise again afterward, Ino had pointed out, they could simply pass off their real personalities as their 'fighting faces'. Naruto liked the way he said it better though, he'd got his game face on because it was time to play.

He didn't relax the changes to his face (he couldn't without a conscious effort now) so he still looked like Bai, but his personality was pure and unadulterated Uzumaki Naruto, "you must be Rikae-san's financial advisor. I thought your chakra tasted familiar."

The boy wrinkled his nose at the thought of chakra having a taste. To animalistic ninja like the Inuzaka clan, it was said, chakra was a smell all of its own. Many with doujutsu spoke of chakra in terms of normal sight. Both taijutsu types and those that used mental chakra (both genjutsu masters and more specialist types like Ino's clan) were said to experience chakra as an analogue of touch, texture in the case of mentalists and a sort of barely notable pressure for physical types. Those who delved deeply into theory and the nature of chakra tended to perceive chakra as a unique sense that could no more be explained in terms of the others than you could describe the colour and smell of a person's voice, from the confusion of some of their conversations both Ino and Naruto realised that Shino was likely headed down this path. People who heard chakra were generally quite mad, although whether hearing chakra was a delusion brought on by madness or whether the constant ringing of a world full of chakra simply drove them mad was still the subject of heated and inconclusive debate.

Tasting chakra was very rare, there was no real stigma or stereotype attached to it, it was simply something that never really happened. There were exactly eighteen people world who could taste chakra, exactly half of whom could do so from birth and the other half who used artefacts with special jutsu placed upon them to do so. If Naruto realised the significance of those numbers he probably wouldn't let it be known too widely that he was one of the 'since birth' types.

"Financial advisor? Head of security is more fitting for a missing nin of my standing thankyou." The older boy's tone was condescending and superior, calculated to offend.

"Well, it is possible I suppose, but I think security was probably the other chakra. It was much better hidden than yours," Naruto modulated his voice perfectly to match the offence and meet the other boy's condescension, pound for pound.

"So you hired on with this bozo after we turned you down, eh?" the older boy's blustery attempt to cover his shock at Naruto sensing his partner actually put the blonde in quite a spot. He would either be forced to give away a little of the truth outright or risk giving away even more with a, too hastily constructed, lie. As Naruto frantically reviewed his options however, a much better liar came to his aid.

"You aren't thinking hard enough Kamakiri-kun," Seibo-san's voice was quite calm, betraying neither any hint of a lie nor any nervousness in the face of a man obviously sent to assassinate him. Not for the first time Naruto wondered just how far his team could have taken this deception when lumped with a less competent client and thanked whatever luck was on their side when they got this mission, "If you and Manji-san had paid any attention to your teams on the occasions when I hired you, you would have realised that most of the members of my family who don't inherit turn to fields of work where heredity is not a prerequisite, life as a ninja suits a great many of our family. Every single person you've worked with in my employ has been a niece, nephew, cousin or sibling, you've even worked with the father of these two at least once.

"If you had bothered to notice the resemblances you might have picked up on their little mission to find out just who had been attacking my suppliers over the past few days. Your own employer was judged unlikely to have been the one responsible for my missing shipment, even though the presences of 'two unknown nin' were reported. Yet here you are, worming your way in close, what does your master gain from my inability to make saleable goods at this time?"

So perfect was Seibo-san's acting that even Naruto, who had read the mission briefing and knew better, thought that even if Rikae the mining mogul wasn't out to get the gem manufacturer then at least Seibo honestly thought it was so. Kamakiri apparently knew better however.

"Come now Seibo-dono, we both know you've played dumb one too many times for that to work on us. You have some item with you that our current employer considers enough of a threat that he didn't even want to describe it to us and request retrieval, he didn't even tell us specifically what to destroy. My master and I are under orders to kill you, everyone travelling with you and utterly destroy everything your party is carrying, right down to the last scrap of paper or piece of jewellery." So saying Kamakiri removed his hat and revealed to the world that, just like Naruto had guessed from the parts of his face he had glimpsed so far and his voice that he was only a year or two older than the gennin of cell six.

He was the definition of what a ninja's physical appearance should be, unlike most ninja. The generations of ninja breeding with ninja had turned the occasional weird trait or marking that came with a genetic propensity for chakra manipulation from something that a hew shinobi or kunoichi had to make excuses for into a vivid style that the secretive warriors no longer had to hide because civilians had invented hair dyes, coloured contacts and artistic tattooing to imitate. But this was a perfect shinobi face, neither beautiful nor repulsive, unmarked and without and particular features that held the eye. Even to a trained nin he could become just another boy with brown hair and eyes in a second. Naruto had to make a conscious effort to take in the face and stop his attention drifting to his clothes.

He exemplified the phrase Saito-shisho had used to describe a ninja he had once known. He said it came from a foreign nation that had attacked his home but later started trade and was originally by an English poet, oddly his master still claimed it perfectly fit the leader of the Oniwaban and deserved to be quoted on occasion. Naruto made a fair guess that 'Oniwaban' was a hidden village (or perhaps a clan) but he had no idea what sort of poetry this 'English' was, it didn't seem to be based on structure like normal haiku or tanka at all, it went "Never mole, hare lip, nor scar. Nor mark prodigious."

Naruto ruefully admitted that he didn't really know what 'prodigious' meant either, but the phrase seemed to indicate someone who was completely unremarkable in appearance. Actually this Kamakiri fellow…

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The maid was sleeping peacefully after breathing in a little of one of Shino's bugs' natural defences and a mild genjutsu sent her mother to sit and talk to the driver, allowing the two Konoha nins to converse freely.

"It would seem that Naruto is caught in a genjutsu," Shino's statement was flat as ever but somehow Ino could feel the concern for his teammate within it. But as always with the Aburame boy it was only the concern appropriate between one shinobi and his ally, Ino wondered if she should be irritated at him for not being as concerned about her teammate as she was or at herself for not sharing his implicit trust in Naruto's abilities.

Deciding that Shino's attitude would yield the most efficient battle tactics and teamwork she simply agreed, without expressing her worries, "Yes, it is his weakness after all. Can you tell what it does?"

Shino paused a moment before answering, focussing his chakra senses even more sharply, "It is effecting the areas of his brain related to focus and attention span. I would guess that it is distracting him with some pointless thought while the unknown ninja talks to our client. It doesn't seem to be strong enough to keep affecting him should violence occur so he should come around if he or Seibo-san are attacked."

"... I see, should we move up and assist him?" Ino was already leaning forward to run back to the main carriage whin Shino stopped her.

"No. That would simply loose us many of our advantages, when you fought their boss' guards you deliberately let them think you were much less skilled than you truly are, they also do not know that there are a third and fourth ninja among our group. They would realise that you were more skilled than you let on long before you reached the carriage by the fact that you noticed the genjutsu at all, if I went the fact that I am a shinobi would be clear and they would probably be put on guard enough to spot Saito-sensei. We cant afford to give up any of these advantages unless we catch a deciding blow in the moment they realise their underestimation," Shino had begun to speak more when in the company of only his team and only when talking about the correct logic of a ninja, it was as if it was something of a hobby subject for him rather than something that they had to know about like it was for the others, "Additionally there are several groups of bandits moving in on the servant cart from the opposite side. I assume they will strike as soon as the ninja at the main carriage begins his attack, we must leave at least one of us here to protect the servants until the hired samurai realise what is happening and arrive to defend the cart."

Ino nodded, completely unable to find a point of logic that could argue against the bug boy's conclusion but he continued anyway, as though something was preying on his mind, "Also, Saito-sensei's chakra vanished right when Naruto fell under the illusion, I cant detect him at all."

Thinking this over and applying a little logic of her own Ino nodded once and moved to sit on the front bench with the chef and her son, taking care to huff loudly and look offended, "Serika-chan is sleeping and the porter boy is being creepy!"

The middle aged woman raised an eyebrow at the petulant tone of her voice but seemed otherwise rather maternally amused at the young girl's behaviour, "Well it's no surprise you like him dear. He is rather handsome by the standards of your age group."

"Wha...bu...I...I_ said_ he was being creepy. Where did that 'like him' comment come from? Because it's _wrong._" Miku stuttered and flushed bright red. The stuttering was of course purely an affectation by Ino because she thought it was what civilian girls did when put on the spot. The blush came all on it's own but with a battle in the works she didn't bother to think about it. The older woman seemed to accept the act and chuckled good naturedly at her flustering.

Then there was a scream and a bright spray of blood form the front carriage and Ino was running at full speed before she realised that she had left the cart.

If it were anyone but Shino they might have groaned a complaint along the lines of 'well then... I'll just stay here and fight the bandits alone for a bit then shall I?'. He may have been thinking it. But then he might not.

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Naruto had been snapped awake by the merest touch of his master's chakra several seconds ago and had somehow managed to fool the missing nin into believing he was still spaced out under the influence of the distracting jutsu. When the sound of a blade clearing its sheath reached him he cast about with his chakra and performed a variation on the technique that won him his hitai-ate.

With the usual popping noise and burst of smoke Naruto exchanged places with his client and immediately rolled along the floor of the carriage to avoid a short wide blade that was scything through the air, and the wood on one side of the carriage, at about decapitating height. Ending his roll Naruto continued the motion with a leap and, by bursting through the opposite wall of the carriage in a shower of splinters, put the bulk of the carriage between himself and his foe. Moments later he was relieved to see Seibo do the same by dropping from the roof and landing next to him.

Naruto touched a seal laboriously inked on his right wrist. At first he had thought the idea pointless and a waste of money, but now he found himself grateful that his master had insisted on this setup for the whole team. On nine items of clothing and three bags of gear seals that matched the one pressed under his fingers had been inscribed while he wore them and they had been sealed into a single scroll in the baggage compartment. The horrific expense of buying the appropriate scrolls and having the seals drawn – and it was high, even the pay from this two week C-rank mission wouldn't completely cover it – was all worth it when his disguise clothing vanished into the scroll and was replaced by the battle gear he had received as a present on graduation. Well ... in part, ultimately being comfortable in battle counted for little, what really made this worth while was having a holster full of kunai at his thigh, a pouch of shuriken, exploding tags and first aid gear ant one hip and Sakuraichimonji at the other, without having to shuffle through the large collection of scrolls they had with them and then tie the damn things on to the right places on his body.

Naruto flicked Sakuraichimonji from her scabbard and felt her weight, it would be the first time either him or the sword face real life or death combat (if one didn't count the assassination attempts and the dojo challenges from stupid villagers) and, perhaps, the first time the meitou tasted blood.

There was a grunt of pain and the tang of blood filled the air, the blonde was moving before the sound of said fluid hitting the ground reached his ears. He used his lack of height to his advantage and ran in a crouch under the carriage, shifting his sword in his left hand. _At this low to the ground anyone standing at normal height will be at the same angle as someone jumping if I were standing up so the third stance is probably my best bet._ In his right hand he clasped a fist full of shuriken.

Naruto exploded into the light from the shadows of the carriage, he noted Saito-sensei's legs disappearing from his peripheral vision as he leapt to avoid a blow. Another man – much older than anyone Naruto had ever met, or perhaps only as old as the third and simply not aging as gracefully – leapt away from the same spot Saito-shisho had leapt from. From the man's hand trailed a kusari-kama, presumably the attack the wolf of Mibu had taken to the air to avoid, which sailed harmlessly over Naruto's head. Right in front of him was the target of main interest.

Kamakiri was looking up at the time, holding the blade that had nearly taken Naruto's head inside the carriage but in a relaxed hand as he was spitting streams of pressurised water at the last Shinsengumi's airborne form, in his left hand was a heavy steel shield, also held carelessly was he looked up and away from the blonde.

Still moving at full dash Naruto unleashed his handful of shuriken like a shotgun blast, spraying in a huge, fast moving cloud in the missing nin's general direction. Just as expected the slightly older boy noticed his attacker just in time to raise his shield and block the wave of steel. And to block his vision of Naruto's follow up blow, from bellow the rim of his shield came a spike of steel and a scream.

"Gatotsu, third style!"

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Explaining-ness

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Kusari-kama – a kama on a chain ... yeah it's that simple.

The quote - i dont know why, or how believable it is, but i decided that Shakespeare's works made it to japan before saito left and he had occasion to read a midsummer night's dream. given he was only there for ten years of open trade with the west and that he wasnt the type for that sort of literature i rather doubt the plausibility myself, but damnit he has read it and that phrase stuck in his mind


	9. BAD STANDARD

A/N: this is why you shouldnt like my fics - i'm unbelievably lazy and i get sidetracked really easily. and my fight scenes suck pants. actually ... i'll let you decide thatthe fights suck for yourselves. things that have distracted me since last time i posted - uni (4assessment items due this week and next, value varies from 5 percent to 25 percent of the total course), anime convention in sydney (these the only serious things on this list that i dont feel guilty about), disgaea 2 (87 hours), reading maddox (dot) xmission (dot) com and bash (dot) org, reading the entire blade of the immortal, magic knight rayearth, negima and love hina mangas (up to thier current release for the ones that arent finished yet), reading otherland (all four thousand pages), playing the new legend of zelda, writing three chapters in a week for someone else's fic (this one makes me feel really guilty)

but you see? i'm too easily distracted. dont get me wrong - i intend to keep writing this to the end, but i will probably wander away for a long time if noone reminds me

that said you all owe this chapter to **VFSNAKE** because without him it would sit unfinished on my hdd for another month

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The fox of Mibu – BAD STANDARD

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Hajime Saito stood at the ready, his presence so thoroughly erased that he nearly failed to detect it himself. The problem with concealing his presence to that degree was that his own ability to detect others was compromised, he could no longer feel any chakra that was below it's natural resting state, an incredible inconvenience when one considered that Naruto concealing his chakra to the best of his abilities was still obviously more than a civilian to normal senses yet with his chakra only lowered to that of a second year gennin it was completely invisible to Saito's current senses while the civilians themselves were unable to suppress their tiny chakras in the slightest so they were each clearly detectable presences to the leaf jounin. Every ninja present was suppressing their chakra to some extent so he couldn't sense any of them hidden as he was Of course he could still track them by sight and killing intent so he knew where most were but the hidden one in the woods was completely lost to him. He would have to trust Shino to follow that one.

The advantage that made this near chakra blindness worthwhile was simple, he was standing close enough to this 'Kamakiri' to spit in his eye, and could possibly even avoid detection after doing so.

Suddenly the unnaturally plain faced boy drew a short, broad bladed sword and Naruto relaxed his chakra suppression, suddenly appearing on his master's inner radar. Still Saito made no move, instead trusting his apprentice to survive and protect the client from such a simple attack unaided. His decision proved to be correct.

With Naruto the only notable presence the attacking nin could detect he had rather arrogantly left the recovery form his stroke a little long and Saito was right in place to capitalise on that error. It wasn't a chakra technique, it wasn't even something he had developed since leaving Tokyo. The combination of erased presence and the first style of the Gatotsu was a quick killer for him even in the days of the revolution. The only times someone had survived the sudden blow were those who had had someone else leap in the way to save them, Shishio alone had survived the sudden initial blow completely unaided. With his own voice announcing his presence and attack ringing in his earshe struck at full speed.

There was a satisfying spray of bright blood, but Saito's eyes narrowed in irritation. Ever since these ninjas had become his regular opponents the instances of his targets being saved by the 'someone else leaping in' method had increased, as had the instance of those who leapt in somehow surviving. Before him, with blood flowing from the palm of his hand where the deflected sword had bitten deeply, stood a man in a flowing yukata, by Saito's estimation he was about the same age as Sarutobi but wore his years more heavily. It was likely that life as a missing nin (or even a shinobi from a major village whose iryo ninjutsu was less advanced than that of the leaf) had left him with more unhealed scars than Konoha's venerable elder.

Certainly his actions betrayed even more experience than the wolf of Mibu, but for all his insight, skill and technique he clearly possessed not a quarter of the strength and vigor of his accomplice, Saito reached the obvious conclusion that they were master and apprentice.

Even as the blood from the new arrival's wound flew through the air Saito was shifting to a second stance cut. The elder was clearly experienced enough to know when backing off was in his favour and evaded the strikes by leaping to the side and flinging a kusari-kama by it's chain in his uninjured hand. Saito evaded with a small hop to the near demolished carriage's driver's seat. Below it came his own screaming apprentice.

With a mighty yell Naruto unleashed a fistful of shuriken as a cloud of sharpened and spinning metal. From within the pack on the saddle of the donkey came a thick steel shield, raised in haste to intercept the attack. With his vision obscured by the shield there was no way to completely avoid Naruto's next attack and the third style strike opened his cheek. With some sort of superhuman effort the bleeding assassin transformed the tilting of his body in evasion into an improvised reverse wheel kick – a potent blow that set Naruto floating, lifted almost his own height above the ground (rather than slammed downward into it as he would be from a conventional wheel kick) – and used his blonde assailant's air time to regain his footing after such a desperate evasion.

The battlefield came to a rest as the elder shinobi adjusted their assessments of each opponent based on what they had observed and the younger pair did the desperate math of how each of their new wounds would affect them. Well, Kamakiri probably did at least, Naruto was busy being hunched on the ground gasping for air, Saito could already feel a hint of the healing influence of Naruto's 'guest' which usually indicated that the injury was a bit worse than just some bruising, Ino came vaulting over the carriage, garbed once more in her normal 'sexy kunoichi' getup by a scroll just like Naruto's, and landed in a guard stance in front of her team mate. Saito used the instant of the missing nins revaluating the situation to make his choice, despite the fact he was surprised the younger had managed to inflict more damage on his attacker than he received, while the elder, even with surprise on his side, had managed to deal no damage while receiving a deep wound himself.

"Seibo-dono, you have kept a great many things from us, what you know of these men, several other things and the fact that you are able to hide your chakra," this had not truly been a surprise for Saito, his client being as invisible as any of the known ninjas when the wolf had concealed himself was simply confirmation of his suspicions, "Do the things you've hidden include abilities sufficient to guard your servant's carriage from bandit attack and allow Shino-kun to join the battle?" for his part the client didn't seem bothered to be caught out, nor did he bother to give any confirmation to Saito's enquiry before running off to guard his servants, his chakra was no longer hidden and it peaked at around chuunin level, "Naruto, Ino, you two and Shino will be fighting the older gentleman ..."

"Kessennashi Manji," the nin in question supplied with a look of interest, this leaf wouldn't really just feed three fresh gennin to a much more experienced opponent would he?

"... indeed," Saito moved on, storing the information for later consideration, "bear in mind that he is much more skilled and experienced than you, don't try to outwit him or end it quickly because he will undoubtedly see through any trick you create, a long battle using simple tactics is in your favour since the time taken to gain such vast knowledge and experience has cost him much of his youthful vigour and stamina. He probably prefers the second circle but I doubt he has a weak range."

In response the older shinobi simply nodded acceptance, if they chose to split up the other way then he would be down very quickly and his apprentice would have to face the whole team combined, he might kill one of the gennin before his master fell but facing this jounin with the support of two of his gennin would spell his end too, the death of both master and student in one battle. Besides, if they were going to try to tire him then there were more than a few ways to deal with that, he was much more skilled than they were so taking to the trees and hiding while he rested and bided his time until his student eventually killed off this foolish jounin and came to his aid was an option, so was forcing close combat and killing one or two off before fatigue set in with some of the more delicate tricks he had developed over a lifetime and then popping a soldier pill to finish the duel off. There were plenty of ways he could face this, not to say that the risk of his own death was absent, in many ways it was even more prominent that times he had taken S-rank missions in his youth, but this split yielded the highest possibility for success for both sides – he and his student had their best scenario for surviving this mess and from the defending Konoha nin's point of view the young and powerful Kamakiri couldn't simply abandon his master in favour of the mission objective as long as the jounin was focussed solely on him.

"Master, I recommend you take your duel away somewhere, I intend to utilise my bloodline limit against this man." Manji smiled, of course his apprentice would be forced to use 'that', this leaf had a simply mammoth chakra supply, he could probably run at a dead sprint for forty eight hours without stopping simply by converting his chakra into additional stamina. But with his bloodline active even a chakra as large as Kisame of the seven swords of mist wouldn't help you. Manji turned and vanished toward the tree line, the added cover would give him more options when it came to holding off the gennin.

Ino and the by then fully recovered Naruto dashed after. At about that time Seibo joined the fight to repel the bandits from his servant's carriage and several moments later the dark blur of a dashing Aburame left the fray to pursue the other gennin of his squad.

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Giichi rather liked working for ninja, most bandits didn't since ninja tended to treat bandits like trash. But really, compared to the prowess of a fully trained shinobi, weren't they? Firstly ninja had no idea how little most bandits lived on so as long as you weren't stupid enough to give the game away by looking amazed at how much they paid you could make a whole season's worth of petty thievery working as a decoy unit for a day. Secondly since they all thought you were good for nothing once battle started bandits were always assigned to rush some other thing that wasn't part of the space where the ninja would be fighting to draw off a gennin or two, Giichi's bandits could handle a gennin or two with the right tactics, minimal losses. It all added up to a high paying few days with fewer losses to the squad than a group might see just from a single raid by local police and possibly a bonus for actually killing an enemy ninja.

The shirtless boy with all the patches covering supposed scratches on his torso was probably a ninja planted to protect the servants, he would pose as a rash child and charge first, hoping to take down the 'leader' of the bandits, Giichi's long time partner Saburou. The newbies would open a path to the 'leader' who would laugh at the boy's foolishness and taunt him, then, when it was too late to evade, the opening would close and the whole group of newcomers would thrust with their pole arms, ninja normally dodged these hits, but that's why they used pole arms and not spears, once the first thrust was dodged they would swing the cutting edges of their halberds, pikes and naginatas, trapping the nin and forcing him to reveal his ninja status by using the replacement technique. Being taught traditional tactics, ninja always replaced right behind the leader in this situation and right then the boy would find himself filled with arrows right as he appeared. Doing the shooting would be Giichi himself and three others who had survived enough of these raids to be considered experienced, as the 'unit's best archer Giichi himself would be shooting the arrows that would pass close enough to Saburou to cut his clothing, the perfection of his aim was the reason he was out here instead of acting as the bait.

As predicted the boy screamed and began to charge, no faster than a normal boy so as not to reveal his ninja-ness until the moment when surprise would do the most damage, tilting his head to one side Giichi considered, the boy was probably a gennin from his movements, that would make him the fifteenth gennin victim to this strategy, three chuunin had also fallen to it. When they thought they were under cover ninja tended to try and stay that way, that made killing them easier. If they were found out too soon they usually started spraying the area with ninjutsu or illusions which meant more overall casualties for the bandit squad. The boy hit the spear line and revealed his true speed, Giichi had guessed correctly, a gennin.

Some of the newer troops were put off by the ninja boy's unusual replacement, some sort of black dust or mud that splashed all over them but Giichi had seen that sort of thing before and he simply released an arrow into the area behind his long time partner in the sure knowledge that the ninja would appear there, they seemed to be fascinated with getting behind their enemies.

It came as something of a surprise when the ninja didn't reappear there, none of them had ever seen through the trap before ... but where did he replace to then? From Giichi's right came a sickeningly wet snap and turning, he saw the shinobi in question – now inexplicably clothed in a long grey, high collared coat where he was previously bare-chested – planting a foot into the throat of one of the other archers. Quick of with and with his hands Giichi had another shaft knocked in his bow in a blink, he never found out what it hit because some force closed his throat and he blacked out near instantly, never to wake again.

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Naruto was coming closer and closer to death with each exchange of blows, even this early on it was clear that his opponent was tiring much faster than him, despite his movements being far smoother and less wasteful. It was also clear that if he couldn't disengage and regain his guard for a few moments he would be dead before it became telling. It seemed that every time he fielded one of the old warrior's blows he had less time to bring his blade back to deal with the next, of course he knew this wasn't true, his guard was being manipulated by this man and soon he would have no choice but to guard in a way that left him completely open to the next blow. If it weren't for the presence of Ino's chakra all around them he'd probably already be done for, she was covering his openings with balls of glowing light chakra, so far the enemy pulled back and didn't risk hitting them so he hadn't realised that they were merely balls of light chakra, capable of only as much damage as sitting in direct sunlight, as long as Ino kept them moving slow enough to dodge but fast enough to distract him and keep Naruto alive he probably wouldn't touch one and find out that they were harmless, they were only useful as long as he didn't know he could just walk through them.

"Low Naruto."

In response to the familiar tones of his ally Naruto retreated by dropping into a backward roll. Over his rolling form came the grey cloaked shape of Aburame Shino, a kunai in each hand and spinning violently to give the coming blow the force to kill. His first blow brought a kunai into contact with the kama itself, with the weapon suitably engaged he brought his other hand around with it's kunai speeding toward the throat. When that blow too was stopped by lodging the point of the kunai into a link of the chain Shino still didn't slow down, bringing his foot about in a spinning kick now that both of the man's hands were occupied, even when an elbow came up to guard against this final blow Shino didn't seem bothered. He probably didn't have time to be bothered when the old man wrenched his sickle free and slicked the bug user in two neat halves.

The two falling halves exploded into a fury of biting, stinging and buzzing insects, biting at his skin, attempting to inject poisons that did everything from cause pain to numb the effected area and some even eating away at his chakra. The aged shinobi released chakra from everywhere he could manage, not a forceful expulsion as a Hyuuga might when utilising their defence but a steady flow. The chakra, given the water element manipulation and a 'hot' type manipulation, boiled many of the bugs to death, all of them were at least rendered incapable of clinging to him and as he leapt to the cover of the undergrowth and sought a hiding place to recover from that little display. Blasting out that much chakra meant that hoping to take a few of them down before he tired too much was now out of the question.

He thought wistfully of the kusari-kama he had dropped in the excitement of that little moment and sighed with irritation. Still – in his youth, at a time when the seven swordsmen of mist hadn't been forced to run and adopt new names by the actions of those fools Zabusa and Kisame, he _had_ been known by another name.

For the first time in a long time Manji the twelve blades drew the weapon he had, in a bout of unusual humour, named mumei. Ha! A weapon named 'no name', the irony tickled him even now. It was currently like a pair of nunchucks with long curved blades attached to the handles, but that wouldn't do for an ambush, not the explosion of surprising and complicated attacks that he would need to overcome three younger and more physically prepared shinobi. With a short hand motion he flicked the switches controlling the locking mechanisms in the handles of his weapon and released a huge length of extra chain.

He could go for the girl first, she seemed to be weaker in close combat than the boy in the samurai gear, but he hadn't observed enough of her abilities to be certain that he wasn't simply charging into a deadly defensive manoeuvre. The newcomer could really be anything, he hadn't had the chance to observe the boy's movements all day as they rode the carriages like he had with the other two and the only skill he had seen was either an offensive version of the replacement technique or some sort of suicide attack clone. The target had to be the swordsman. Even if the boy's abilities were unknown in their specifics Manji himself was a swordsman and he understood the tactics of fighting against another swordsman intimately, he already had a list of possible tactics for victory and it wouldn't take more than a few blows from the boy to gain enough an idea of his style to choose the most likely to succeed, go for it and, in the event of a successful gamble, move on to which ever of the other two he understands the movements of better by then.

Grasping mumei by the middle of the chain's length he flung out the two bladed 'handles', one each side of his target. Naturally the blonde boy moved to evade while his allies both launched a kunai attack to trap the chain, a standard response to the standard tactic governing the use of such a weapon against multiple enemies. Fortunately Manji was anything but a standard shinobi. With the smallest twitches of his chakra reserves the links that would have been pinned by the projectiles were shifted ever so slightly out of the way of the attacks and the bladed hooks suddenly turned outward, flying with deceptive speed at the two other gennin.

The girl and the dark haired boy had at least not positioned themselves directly opposite each other so their missed throws would not be impaling their allies, too bad since them having to dodge yet another thing would only have helped Manji. None the less the sweeping of the gleaming sickle blades was enough to force both of them to move even further from the blonde, leaving his, still airborne, form to retreat as Manji yanked his weapon back to his hands and charged forth.

The boy landed and dropped into a crouch as the elder nin approached, Manji noted that he was using a left handed stance and was primed mostly for thrusting attacks, the correct offence jumped readily to his mind. Left handed styles were a byword for styles that gripped the sword at the furthest point down the handle rather than close to the guard, where the left hand would grip in a traditional two handed style rather than styles that simply used the left hand. Whereas simply using the left hand would be no different to using a sword right handed except for the side facing the enemy, gripping the sword in the 'left hand' position (even if you did it with your right hand) gave the wielder an extra six inches of reach – a not inconsequential advantage – and much greater power from each blow than the same strike made with the hand gripping the sword at the 'right hand' position at the cost of a huge portion of the wielder's control of the sword. Even among ninja, who had the option of using chakra to compensate for that loss, the technique of left handed wielding was very uncommon.

The combination with a thrusting style, the strongest force that can be exerted by the upper body in one motion, made it clear that the boy preferred speedy strikes with little potential to do coincidental damage but high probability of destroying the body part that was struck, for a ninja this meant more frequent killing and crippling blows early on in the battle. This style clearly took every part of 'traditional' swordsmanship that was meant to kill quickly and without fuss and accentuated them to the peak at the cost of also accentuating the traditional weaknesses of the sword.

Receiving the strong with the soft Manji gently shifted the point of the blade off course, getting in close long before the follow up could be made Manji capitalised, swinging the blade he hadn't used to block in toward the boy's exposed ribs too bad this child would never get to learn the folly of his mistake and gain the experience needed to beat a real opponent. It was really too bad that such an interesting swordsman should die so young, but in a choice between the future he and his student fought for and that this boy may or may not have he knew where the greatest importance lay.

The boy's audacious stance left an area where his enemy was too close to attack freely which was much wider than that of a more conventional sword style and he would pay blood for that. Of course, when one deals with ninja the unexpected is always on the cards and the incoming sickle blade was stopped the only way the blonde could, against his hastily raised forearm. There wasn't even the spray of blood that usually came with someone deciding that a wound incapacitating one arm was better than a fatal one. What was there was the disheartening clang of steel hitting steel, clearly the boy wasn't as inexperienced as he at first seemed. Certainly he was apparently experienced enough to tie kunai to his free arm in case he couldn't block with his sword at least.

But nor was Manji inexperienced enough to rely completely on his initial gamble. He simply abandoned the left hand grip of mumei, with a twist of his hand the tiny blade called kotengu, the little devil, seemed to leap into his now free hand and he thrust it out, barb first toward his adversary's chest. He didn't expect a killing blow after the previous exchange and he wasn't disappointed when the boy slipped away from his strike at the throat, but with the flaring of his yukata sleeves his sudden turn toward the closest shoulder was hidden from view until too late. First the long barb bit into the muscle along the chest, running bellow the surface of the skin and sticking then the straight blade was twisted forward and impaled directly into the joint of the boy's sword arm shoulder.

There he may not be dead but with the barb sticking he wouldn't be getting the blade out soon and with a destroyed sword arm he would be little threat when he did. Manji moved on to the other male, whose movements revealed that he didn't deal well with close range and preferred to execute sneaky attacks from hiding, some would say a 'proper ninja'.

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A pair of shuriken flashed in the afternoon light, thrown in sync by a pair of ninja wearing leaf hitai-ate and followed in an instant by a pair of kunai. The shuriken each pinned a link of the chain to a separate tree and the kunai each pierced the hole at the centre of a star, locking it completely beyond the ability of a mere strong pull to dislodge.

Shino charged, preparing for close combat to retrieve his ally before a killing blow could be landed, beside him ran Ino, already forming seals to launch a torrent of pretty lights. The enemy was looking to the right, apparently distracted, that meant he had spotted the 'true' Shino in the trees. Of course the ploy of having a clone hide while the real version charges isn't exactly unheard of in the wide world of the shinobi and Shino held little doubt that a nin with so much experience would see through it and realise which Shino was real. He could only really hope that in his uncertainty the missing nin would chose to strike at the more definite target, Ino.

With her wall of floating lights the attacking nin would have to be more careful since he still didn't know that the lights were really a harmless distraction and that extra care would slow him enough for Shino to land a telling blow.

Just as predicted the aged shinobi suddenly turned his eyes on the kunoichi, drawing two katana from somewhere in his robes that should not have been able to hold even the weapons he had already yanked from them. With a snap he locked the blades together at their hilts, forming a sort of bladed staff. A voulge, with a helicopter spinning motion he brought about his enormous cutting disk and simply stepped through the balls of chakra barring his way and swung at her abdomen.

_Damn,_ he apparently _had_ realised that the light balls were a ruse and chose to ignore them. Preparing a replacement technique Shino launched himself in the path of the blade, as it struck the Aburame heir activated his jutsu, replacing himself with the clone who was currently moving to recover Naruto.

Grasping the blade piercing it's stomach as close to the hilt as possible the decomposing clone made sure to spray it's bugs as far over the swordsman as possible. Once more he released a burst of boiling chakra and once more the bugs died around him, but also once more he was forced to abandon a weapon because of their presence.

As Shino helped Naruto to his feet the enemy seemed to grow enraged, drawing another pair of swords, this time a short blade of perhaps a foot in length with three huge barbs along it's length, one near the base and one at the tip on the front of the blade and one halfway on the blade's reverse edge. In his left he clutched an equally short stabbing sword, with wide serrations along it's length to increase the collateral damage of each thrust and a wickedly sharp point at it's tip. He thrust with full rage at Ino.

The gennin kunoichi screamed and nearly fell on her rump in terror at the sudden ferocity, launching one more ball in her panic. It may be that her enemy's realisation that her light balls were a ruse that saved her, as he ignored the blast he could otherwise have evaded with ease and thrust his blade forward he was affected by a different chakra than the light chakra that normally filled the balls, this blast was packed full of mental chakra that the girl had learned to use almost instinctively due to her family's specialty. Where it would normally force a mind out of control of a body this half formed chakra merely released conscious control of the body part it hit. Fortunately this happened to be the arm holding the incoming serrated blade and the nin dropped his precious weapon in surprise.

Then Naruto came from behind, screaming to cover his pain and wielding his sword rather unsteadily in his off hand he thrust. The arm Ino hit was not quite fast enough to recover from it's first blow and the tapezius muscle along the top of the shoulder was severed, moving the arm up scale from temporarily disabled to out of commission completely.

With a howl the nin spun on the spot, delivering a fierce back kick to the hilt of his smallest weapon still protruding from Naruto's shoulder, the blonde went down in a screaming, private world of agony.

Behind him came Shino with a vicious backhand blow to the nin's face, dropping him to the mossy floor of the forest. As he fell the aged master slammed out his occupied hand, the hooked monstrosity of a blade sank deeply into the bug user's upper arm, going all the way through and sticking with all three barbs.

With his enemies suitably distracted he took the chance to draw his last normal katana and slam the hilt into the girl's throat, though he no longer had the strength to close the throat and kill her as tired as he was it was still enough to leave her choking and coughing on the ground as he scurried to find a hiding place where he could catch his breath and re-evaluate the situation.

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Shino made a spot judgement. Ino had fallen unconscious from lack of oxygen, but the sudden cease to her struggles also freed up a lot of the muscles in her throat and she was not breathing normally, she should be up in a short time. Naruto had pulled the dagger from his shoulder, worsening the damage to a level that most would never recover from, and was currently a writhing spasm of pain on the dirt. Knowing the incredible level of healing capacity that his team mate had exhibited in the past Shino estimated that he would be back to normal fighting capacity in two to four hours.

The two were now out of the battle and Shino was alone, on one hand he could give chase and hope to catch the elder missing nin while he still had the stamina advantage and risk leaving his team mates open to finishing blows or he could stick with them and try to hold a defensive position and risk his enemy not attacking them and thus having time to recover. If he chose to wait and the older nin didn't try to finish Naruto and Ino then the recovery of his stamina would probably spell Shino's own death. But if he gave chase and the nin circled back then he would be sacrificing his closest friends.

There really was only one right choice, he had no idea of how he would tell which was which before it became too late but he made the choice his training had conditioned him to make properly. His enemy would want to ensure survival to aid his apprentice more than he wanted to finish a few gennin. And his enemy didn't realise that he had managed to place a female Kikaichuu.

Shino gave chase.

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Explaining-ness –

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Kisame of the seven swords – because he isn't widely known as kisame of the akatsuki because ... well they don't advertise

Manji the twelve blades – that was manji's (the manji from blade of the immortal who I am basing this character on) nickname before he became known as the killer of one hundred, which is in turn before he became immortal.

Kessennashi Manji – lit: manji without kessen(chu), kessenchu (holy blood worms) are what make manji from blade of the immortal ... immortal.

Mumei – looks like a pair of nunchucks with sickle blades attached to the handles (not the normal combat sickles, recurved ones like on the soviet flag) the handles hide and extra seven feet of chain which can be let out by pressing a locking mechanism.

Kotengu – little devil, about the size of a kunai with two parallel prongs pointing forward, one of the prongs bends to the side at a right angle half way along it's length forming the barb of this nasty bit of gear. Can be attached to the hilt of a katana to catch and trap enemy blades like a sai. It's actually meant for climbing walls.


	10. Over

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to decide this, but the truth is that frankly i haven't enjoyed watching naruto since the fillers before the timeskip. I still love the manga but i've also stopped reading Naruto fan fiction altogether. and in absolute truth i cannot write a fanfiction for something i wouldnt read myself.

If you want to see my current works look up the penname "Kel's guild of authors", I'm an active member and i write King of the dead with Munchinmonster and LordShadowDragon as well as Karate club EX with sarcastic strawberry.

I had and still have many plans for this fic but i just cant write them down because I dont feel naruto as a story anymore.

Sorry to all those who read this and who have me favourited or alerted. Especially VFSNAKE, i hoped that being back at uni again would get me out of this funk but it isnt happening for me.

See you over at my guild fics if you decide to come.

ja ne


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